Star Fox 64, also known as Lylat Wars in Europe (due to copyright issues), is the second game in Nintendo's Star Fox series and the sequel to Star Fox. It was released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997.

The planned second game in the series for the Super Famicom/SNES, Star Fox 2, was scrapped, but a good deal of it was in Star Fox 64. Star Fox 64 was the first game to introduce support for the Rumble Pak.

New features

Among the new features is the vastly hyped in-game sampled voice speech that has replaced the chatter from the original game. The original chatter referred to as Lylat in the language option-screen, can however be enabled. This feature is not available in the US-version of the game. The game relies much more heavily on dialogue than the original, and together with the cinematic sequences they drive the story forwards.

Instead of the fixed series of levels of the original (determined by the difficulty level chosen), many of the levels branch out to two different levels, with the "upper" branch requiring the player to complete a certain task. If this task is failed, then the player must take the "downward" route. The levels correspond loosely to the original difficulty levels, with routes colour coded blue, yellow and red to respresent the easiest, medium and hardest levels of difficulty.

As well as the forced progression of the main game, some levels have an "all range mode", where the player can move freely around the rectangular arena, and engages in combat with various enemies. The Arwing has two new maneuvers as well: it can now perform a loop to get the drop on pursuing baddies, and, in all-range mode, it can Immelmann up-and-over to change direction.

The game features the first appearance of the Star Wolf team, evil alter egos of the Star Fox team.

Finally, to add replay challenge, the game features awardable "medals," which are earned by accomplishing a mission (not just surviving to the end of it) with all wingmen intact and having achieved a certain kill total. These totals are often a high percentage of the total enemies on the stage, leaving little room for error.

Story

The wicked scientist Andross has been sent to exile on the deserted planet Venom, and one day strange activity is spotted from the planet, Corneria. An Arwing-team consisting of Pigma Dengar, James McCloud (Fox's father) and Peppy Hare are sent to investigate. Upon their arrival Pigma betrays the team and James is captured while Peppy barely manages to escape back to Corneria. (Depending on your path, James appears at the end of the game and helps Fox escape from Venom.)

Upon learning the news of Pigma's betrayal a new team is assembled consisting of Fox McCloud (the player), Falco Lombardi, Slippy Toad and Peppy Hare. Fox is the final hope of putting an end to Andross' madness and thereby securing the peace of the Lylat solar system.

A notable difference from the original game's story is that the Star Fox team, albeit being mercenaries in both games, already possess of Arwings when they are called to help defend Corneria whereas in the original game they are recruited to act as pilots for the newly developed Arwings.

Multiplayer

The game features multiplayer support for up to four players simultaneously. You can choose to play using either the Arwing spaceship, the Landmaster tank or as the pilot equipped with a bazooka. The two latter modes, however, have to be unlocked.

Stages

• Corneria
• Meteo
• Fortuna
• Sector X
• Titania
• Bolse
• Katina
• Solar
• Macbeth
• Sector Y
• Aquas
• Zoness
• Sector Z
• Area 6
• Venom

Vehicles

• Arwing (spaceship)
• Landmaster (tank)
• Blue Marine (submarine)

Satires

Star Fox 64 contains a few references to other works, mainly movies.

• Opening Music - Sounds very similar to the opening music from Jurassic Park composed by John Williams
• Katina - The Invader II class fighters closely resemble the alien fighteres in the film Independence Day
• Katina - The enemy mothership resembles the alien battleships in the film Independence Day
• Ending Music - Resembles the ending music from Independence Day by David Arnold at the beginning.
• Ending - The ending sequence where the Star Fox team walks down a hall with soldiers on each side resembles the ending of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

External links