The Video Game Revue

F-Zero

Here's one that you might not expect: F-Zero. It was the first game that I ever played for the Super Nintendo (yes, before Super Mario World, although that was a close second), and did it ever blow my mind. It must have been early in 1993 or late in 1992. Whatever the case, I was struck immediately by the simulation-like feel of the game; the controls, physics, and overall gameplay was totally solid. And you could drive backwards! Alright, so none of these things is impressive by today's standards, but at the time, F-Zero was bar none the most impressive racing game available for any console. You had to buy a PC to get anything else even close to the same experience.

Technical considerations aside, F-Zero also has a great deal of character. The setting, artwork, and music are all high points of the game, as are the epic tracks and the furious in-game battling of cars. Knocking other cars around in F-Zero wasn't encouraged quite as much as it was in later F-Zero titles (I'm thinking of F-Zero X for the N64, for example), but there was the occasional good hit, and those hits were all the more sweet for being so dangerous. Any mid-air collision was just as likely to destroy you as the other car, so you really had to be in control to want to do it. Overall, the whole feel of the game was just that much more believable than most fantasy racers, like Wave Race 64 or Jet Moto. I loved both Wave Race 64 and Jet Moto, but neither of them was as engrossing as F-Zero because, as an overall experience, F-Zero simply did a better job of making me believe in the game--that is, drawing me in, and allowing me to suspend my disbelief so much that the game world seemed real.

A younger gamer would likely pass over the F-Zero titles with little more than a shrug, and I can hardly blame them. What F-Zero has become is not all that impressive, as much as I wish it were otherwise. However, the original F-Zero, the SNES launch title, did capture my attention in a way that few games ever have. I don't know if it is really possible for a gamer born in, say, 1990 to imagine that the year is 1993 and F-Zero is an astoundingly cool game that does things no console gamer has ever seen before, but take my word for it at least: F-Zero is a great, great game.

posted by Parappa @ 8:43 AM