Video games - F-Zero X

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	Video games - F-Zero X

F-Zero X, released for Nintendo 64, is the third (second in North America and the rest of the world) installment in Nintendo's F-Zero series.

Gameplay

Driving Tactics

Basic driving operations include using the A button for Gas, B for Boost (only available on laps 2 and 3), C-Down for brakes, the control stick to steer the machine and the R and Z buttons to execute the 'Side Attack' move.

Of particular interest is that prior to each race players may adjust their vehicle's balance between maximum acceleration and maximum top speed. This adds strategy and replay value, as players with greater knowledge of the tracks can make better decisions.

Modes

The game includes the following gameplay modes:

GP Race: Race against 29 opponents through the tracks of a Grand Prix tour.
Death Race: Driving on a perpetual straightaway, destroy the other 29 racers in the shortest time possible.
Time Attack: Choose a track and complete it in the shortest time possible. Good times will unlock recorded races against which to test oneself.
Practice: Practice any track with 29 opponents.
Multiplayer: Race a single track against 1, 2, or 3 human opponents.

Full records of Time Attack and Death Race times are stored on the game cartridge, as well as Cups won with each machine in each difficulty setting.

Cups and Vehicles

The game features thirty (30) vehicles, including the four from the original F-Zero
, all of which are in F-Zero GX. Six are available from the start and more can be unlocked as the player completes the cups. There are five cups, most with names based on face cards: the Jack, Queen, King, Joker and X Cups. X cup becomes available once the player has beaten all the other cups in expert mode (or if appropriate cheat codes are entered). The X Cup is unique in that all of its courses are randomly generated, a first and only for a F-Zero game. While this added infinite variety to the game, it was hampered by the program's somewhat limited definition of "random": some of its tracks are quite literally plain ovals, requiring little-to-no skill to win, while others offered such convoluted hairpin turns that the unwary player (and CPU competitors) could find themselves "retiring" into the atmosphere on a frequent basis.

Jack Cup

Mute City
Silence
Sand Ocean

Devil's Forest
Big Blue
Port Town

Queen Cup

Sector Alpha
Red Canyon
Devil's Forest 2

Mute City 2
Big Blue 2
White Land

King Cup

Fire Field
Silence 2
Sector Beta

Red Canyon 2
White Land 2
Mute City 3

Joker Cup

Rainbow Road (Bears the same name of the track in the Mario Kart series and has the exact shape of the Rainbow Road circuit in Mario Kart 64
)
Devil's Forest 3
Space Plant

Sand Ocean 2
Port Town 2
Big Hand

X Cup

The X Cup is randomly generated whenever one plays it. One will never be on the same track. These tracks, in general, are usually quite short and much more simplistic than the other standard F-Zero tracks.

Death Race

Death Race

Graphics engine

F-Zero X is the first F-Zero game to be fully polygonal and run at 60 frames per second, which is unusually fast for a Nintendo 64 game. This was made possible by low polygon counts, simple textures, and disabling the normal Z-buffering of the N64, instead using an alternative drawing scheme that results in the occasional visual glitch or car seen through a track.

Music and Sound

The F-Zero series is notable for a rock/electronic soundtrack, and to carry on this idea on the N64 the normal sound processor was bypassed: around 10% of the processor is allocated just to background music.

The soundtrack was released on CD on January 27, 1999 in a "Guitar Arrange Edition" featuring live electric guitar arrangements of 10 of the game's music tracks.

Expansion Kit

An Expansion Kit was released in Japan for the 64DD, a removable disk add-on that plugged into the bottom of the N64. This disk includes 2 new cups, a couple of new cars, a track editor, and a car editor.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for F-Zero X ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article F-Zero X; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

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