ONM Remembered – #421
“Even after artificially raising their hopes for a universal machine then releasing a late, overpriced, absurdly slower model and charging ludicrous sums for late, incompetently-converted games, such as, for example, Wave Race, Britain remains tenaciously eager! What could we possibly do next that’s more fun? Wait! I have it. We’ll delay the PAL Yoshi’s Island until 2002 and call it Hands Up! I Have A Gun – Put The Money In The Bag. Surely not even they will stand for that.”
from N64 Magazine issue 8 (November 1997)
An entertaining review for Lylat Wars‘ UK release (“as we must now teeth-grindingly call Starfox 64“) by Jonathan Nash. Alongside oodles of lovely screenshots, it includes Fox McCloud’s very British journal entries across the various planets, lots of griping about Nintendo’s UK releases, and of all things, a sub-vs-dub argument on the English translation. You half expect him to complain they didn’t leave the honorifics in.
Looking back, it’s almost strange knowing that gaming media and Nintendo 64 owners were blowing their tops in excitement over a rail shooter, of all things. It just seems so foreign now that unless it’s third-person exploration or a first-person shooter, it’s tough for mainstream media to get hyped for any other game. I’d love for a modern lightgun game to rock the news the way Lylat Wars did.
Was there any big media coverage for Star Fox Zero? I wasn’t paying any attention to Nintendo at the time, so I wouldn’t know.
Nintendo gave Zero a memorable introduction at E3, and they made a nifty-if-frivulous anime short to hype its release… but I think the moment everyone heard about its gyroscope controls they tuned out.
I’d almost like to see some magazine coverage of the game; there’s something about a packed page full of screenshots and art and funky fonts that’ll really conducive to getting a ‘feel’ for a game. (though i think all the articles picking it apart get the message across just fine)