F-Zero: Brakes are for Suckers

Alright, so my first go at this F-Zero game was a... Partial success. To be honest, I was actually feeling pretty confident about my abilities after the first lap of Mute City. I thought the controls were simple, and that I knew exactly how to power through this whole game. Oh ho ho, boy, was I wrong. This game is vicious. It is fast, and relentless, and it is near impossible to stop to think about anything else when you're blasting along in your hover-car. By the end of my sit-down I was cursing left, right and center. I slammed my fists down on the table and walked away to get some chocolate ice cream. Let's see how I started off so well.

The game starts off simple enough. Two options: Grand Prix or Practice. I'm like "Practice? Hah, who needs it." So I jump in. There's only four different cars, which seems ludicrously small considering the roster of cars in modern racing games (over 1,000 in some cases.) I don't really take time to look at stats or acceleration because the Blue Falcon looks perfect and I love me Smash Bros.

Logic = flawless.

So here go, Mute City. Pretty basic starting racing level. More or less an oval-ish shape.

^See that oval? It's a bit distorted

So the cars blast off and I gun it. I pass two of them easily enough but the yellow car is just ahead of me. We tango for a bit, weaving side to side, he's trying to keep me from passing him, I'm trying to pass him... Classic. Then we turn.

Let me tell you something about F-Zero corners. They are tight. These are not very forgiving corners of the stage. And when you bump the wall you will know. It electrifies you. I'd say it's like the bottom of your car is fingernails, and the edges of the stage are like a chalkboard. You grind down on it and it hurts you and makes a horrible sound that you never want to experience again. But if you're going too fast, it'll shuck you all the way into the opposite wall, which will shoot you back and electrify you too. So brings in the power meter at the top right of the screen. This is your health bar. It goes down when you hit something - be it a wall or another car. There is one strip of healing track per level (so far anyway) and when you go onto it a little robot appears above you and lasers down some glowing energy that heals you.

So anyway, back to the race at hand. This yellow guy was not letting up, and even when I passed him, he was ALWAYS right on my tail. It was like no matter how fast, or how well I thought I was doing, he was literally always right behind me. I did manage to keep calm though, it was all about focus, that's one of the main things I took away; this game demands your attention or you will be passed. You can't idle. Idle and Die.

So I'm in first place right now, great place to be. There are only 3 other cars and they're behind me (right behind me infact), when I see a car coming up infront of me. And I'm thinking, "Sweet, I'm lapping one of them!" But, no, it was a car I didn't recognize. So I pass it, and there are a couple more. Then it just becomes normal that there are all these other cars in the race. Some of them are flashing, and if you bump them, they explode. I guess their extra enemies to deal with, because just racing would be boring, right?

So that's the gist of Mute City. I won though.

Wooo! First place!

Next we came to Big Blue, which is a really fun stage; and has an AMAZING soundtrack to it. It's very recognizable, but that may be because I played a lot of Smash Bros. (When will I stop referencing that game? Who knows.)

Anyhoo, pretty well the same deal here. Kept ahead, couldn't look back, smashed into some walls, tight corners, flashing enemy-bombs. Came out on top.

So I really felt good about those two first levels, and I imagined I would continue this winning streak and demolish anything in my way. You'll see how wrong I was in my next post, catch ya later gamers!