Star X |
Game Boy Advance |
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Review by Matt Paprocki |
Bam! |
Shooter |
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Graphics: 8 |
Sound: 6 |
Gameplay: 6 |
Overall: 6.5 |
Star X is an obvious (if not blatant) attempt to replicate the
success of Nintendo's own Star Fox series. From it's graphical style to it's
control, nearly everything is a carbon copy of the SNES classic. However, it's missing
that special "something" that Star Fox had, which lowers it a few
notches from greatness.
The soundtrack, while mildly impressive, suffers from a very low, scratchy quality. Your shots are hardly audible over the music and the lack of any voice samples (settling for slow moving text instead) is a downer. It's not a game that will show off the audio capabilities of the portable, but what's here is decent enough to make it mentionable. One of the nicer changes is the addition of free-roaming stages. Though you're still limited to an area by invisible boundaries, it's nice to be able to turn around on your free will once in a while. Yes, the majority of the game is made up entirely of stages on rails, but these intermittent stages break up the action nicely. What brings this entire package down is the control. You're constantly forced to re-center the aiming cursor making shooting a near impossibility at times. You can change it's sensitivity in the options menu, but it hardly helps. The free roaming stages also have problems since you're not sure what exactly you're supposed to be shooting down. Most are timed and when you're told to simple "shoot the mines" without being told exactly what a mine looks like, you're pretty much screwed (Note: they're the green dots on your radar). Pop-up is also rampant, but it's hardly a flaw of the designers, just one of the hardware.
Note: If you plan on cheating using an invincibility code (or anything of the sort), be prepared for major game crashes. It locks up constantly when they're used. |