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F-Zero (video game)

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This article is about the first game in the series. For information on this Nintendo franchise as a whole, see F-Zero (series).
F-Zero
Box art for F-Zero
Developer(s)Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Designer(s)Shigeru Miyamoto (producer)[2] Kazunobu Shimizu (director)[2]
EngineMode 7 (single-layer)[3][4]
Platform(s)SNES, Virtual Console
ReleaseSNES[1]
  • JP: November 21, 1990

  • NA: August 13, 1991

  • EU: June 4, 1992

Virtual Console
  • NA: November 19, 2006

  • JP: December 2, 2006

  • EU: December 8, 2006
Genre(s)Futuristic racing game
Mode(s)Single-player

F-Zero (エフゼロ, Efu Zero, F-ZERO) is a futuristic racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The game was released in Japan on November 21, 1990, in North America on August 13, 1991, and in Europe on June 4, 1992.[1] The title was downloadable over the Nintendo Power peripheral in Japan[5] and was also released onto the Nintendo Super System. In late 2006, F-Zero became available for the Virtual Console service on the Wii.[6]

F-Zero is the first game of the F-Zero series and was one of the launch titles for the SNES. It was released in Japan as one of the two initial games,[7] but was accompanied by additional titles in North America and Europe.[8] Players control fast hovercrafts and use their speed-boosting abilities to navigate through the courses as quickly as possible.[4]

F-Zero is considered to be one of the first futuristic racing games,[4][9] and is acknowledged by critics for setting a high standard for the genre.[6][10] Critics lauded F-Zero for its fast and challenging gameplay, variety of tracks, and extensive use of the graphical mode called "Mode 7".[11][12] This graphics-rendering technique was considered to be a groundbreaking technological achievement at the time that made the title the first racing game to be developed this realistically.[3][13] As a result, the title reinvigorated the racing genre[14][15] and inspired the future creation of numerous racing games.[16][17]

Gameplay

F-Zero is a futuristic racing game where pilots race on circuits inside plasma-powered hovercars in an intergalactic Grand Prix at speeds that can exceed 400 km/h. The objective of the game is to beat opponents to the finish line while avoiding hazards such as land mines, slip zones and magnets that pull the vehicle off-center in an effort to make the player damage their vehicle or fall completely off the track. A race in F-Zero consists of five laps around the track. The player must complete each lap in a successively higher place to avoid disqualification from the race. For each lap completed, the player is rewarded with an approximate four-second speed boost and a number of points determined by place.[18] One of the "SSS" on-screen displays will be shaded green to indicate that a boost can be used. If a certain amount of points are accumulated, an extra "spare machine" is acquired. F-Zero includes two modes of play. In the Grand Prix mode, the player chooses a league and races against twenty generic vehicles[19] of different colors through each track in that league. The Practice mode allows the player to practice seven of the courses from the Grand Prix mode.[18]

The game introduced the first F-Zero characters: Captain Falcon, Dr. Stewart, Pico, and Samurai Goroh. Each of the four characters have their own selectable vehicle along with its unique performance abilities.[16] Each machine has an energy meter, which serves as a measurement of the machine's durability; it decreases, for example, when the machine collides with the side of the track or another vehicle.[18]

Leagues

F-Zero has a total of fifteen tracks divided into three leagues: Knight, Queen, and King. Additionally, the Death Wind, Port Town, and Red Canyon courses have areas that are not accessible unless the player is on another version of those tracks, which then in-turn closes the direction previously available. The game has three initial difficulty levels: beginner, standard, and expert.[18] Completion of the expert class in any league unlocks the master difficulty level.[20] Unlike most F-Zero games, there are three iterations of Mute City, showing it in day, evening, and night settings. In BS F-Zero 2, Mute City IV continued the theme with an early morning setting.

Story

F-Zero is set in the year 2560, at which time humanity's multiple encounters with alien life forms had expanded Earth's social framework, leading to commercial, technological and cultural interchanges between planets. The multi-billionaires who earned their wealth through intergalactic trade were satisfied with their lifestyles, although most coveted more entertainment in their lives. This resulted in a new entertainment based on the Formula-1 races to be founded with vehicles that could hover one foot above the track. The brutality of the competition initially outraged people, but eventually they demanded more excitement and soon called these Grand Prix races "F-Zero".[16][18]

Development and reception

Mode 7 allowed the track to be scaled and rotated around the vehicle to simulate a 3D environment.[3]

A merger between Nintendo's various internal research and development teams led to the creation of Nintendo EAD, which was co-headed by Shigeru Miyamoto. F-Zero was one of the launch titles for the SNES that EAD had approximately fifteen months to develop completely.[21] Takaya Imamura, a character designer for the game, was surprised to be able to so freely design F-Zero's characters and courses as he wanted since it was his first game.[17] The pseudo-3D capabilities of the SNES were designed to be represented by both F-Zero and PilotWings,[22] with 1UP.com stating these two games "existed almost entirely for the sake of showing them off".[8]

F-Zero was widely lauded for its graphical realism, and has been rated as the fastest and smoothest pseudo-3D racing game of its time.[23][24] This has been mostly credited to the development team's pervasive use of the "Mode 7" system.[11] This technique allowed different kinds of scaling and rotation effects of bitmap graphics, which the game used to simulate 3D environments[24] without processing any polygons. The Mode-7 rendering applied in F-Zero consists of a single-layer which is scaled and rotated around the vehicle.[4] Such techniques in video games were considered to be revolutionary at a time when games were restricted to static/flat backgrounds and 2-dimensional (2D) objects.[16] The game was also praised for its music, variety of tracks, and multiple levels of difficulty.[4] GamePro stated "F-Zero was something of a finesse racer. It took lots of practice, good memorization skills, and a rather fine sense of control."[12]

F-Zero became part of the Player's Choice line by selling more than a million copies.[1] An F-Zero album was released on March 25, 1992 in Japan by Tokuma Japan Communications. It features twelve songs from the game on a single disc composed by Yumiko Kanki, Yukio Kaneoka and Naoto Ishida and arranged by Robert Hill and Michiko Hill.[25]

Legacy

File:BS fzero2 launch.jpg
BS F-Zero feature vehicles that are absent in subsequent games in the series.

F-Zero inspired the future creation of numerous racing games inside and out of its own futuristic subgenre, including the Wipeout series.[16] Amusement Vision's President, Toshihiro Nagoshi, stated in 2002 that F-Zero "actually taught me what a game should be" and that it served as an influence for him to create Daytona USA and other racing games. Amusement Vision collaborated with Nintendo to develop F-Zero GX/AX, with Nagoshi serving as one of the co-producers for these games.[17][26]

Nintendo initially developed the sequel of the first F-Zero game for the SNES, although it was broadcasted in several parts on the St. Giga subscription service for the Satellaview attachment of the Super Famicom instead.[4][27] Using this add-on, gamers could download titles via satellite and save it onto a flash ROM cartridge.[28] The sequel was released under the names of BS F-Zero Grand Prix[27] and BS F-Zero 2 Grand Prix[29] during the mid-1990s, making them the second installments of the franchise. The BS F-Zero games have four playable vehicles that share attributes from the original ones from the SNES game. The tracks are named as a follow-on from F-Zero—the first track is called "Mute City IV", since Mute City I-III appeared in the original game. BS F-Zero 2 Grand Prix features one new league containing five tracks, a Grand Prix and a Practice mode.[29]

Although the F-Zero franchise made the transition to 3D on the Nintendo 64, the Mode 7 engine continued to be used for the Game Boy Advance installments Maximum Velocity[23] and GP Legend.[30] When F-Zero was released onto the Virtual Console service, the game was praised by GameSpot for its controls, longevity and track design. The reviewer felt the game offered exceptional gameplay, with "a perfect balance of pick-up-and-play accessibility and sheer depth". However, both IGN and GameSpot, who gave the title a 7.5/10 and 8/10 respectively, agreed that the game should have used a multiplayer mode.[6][27]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Release Summary: F-Zero". GameSpot. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
  2. ^ a b "F-Zero - Tech Info". GameSpot. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
  3. ^ a b c Hiranand, Ravi. "The Essential 50 #29 -- Super Mario Kart". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2007-11-30. The first example of this [more realistic racing games] was F-Zero, which cleverly didn't bother moving the car around the circuit -- it moved the circuit around the car... In 1991, however, it was truly breathtaking, and provided a vital tool for Nintendo's efforts to withstand Sega's relentless media campaigns.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Schneider, Peer. "F-Zero GX Guide". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-04.
  5. ^ "Nintendo Power" (in Japanese). Nintendo. Archived from the original on 2006-12-15. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
  6. ^ a b c Kasavin, Greg (2006-11-19). "F-Zero review (Virtual Console)". GameSpot. Retrieved 2007-07-17.
  7. ^ Sheff, David. Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children (First ed.). New York: Random House, Inc. pp. p. 361. ISBN 0-679-40469-4. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
  8. ^ a b Parish, Jeremy (2006-11-14). "Out to Launch: Wii". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2007-07-03.
  9. ^ IGN Staff (2003-04-29). "IGN's Top 100 Games". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  10. ^ Allen, Matt. "SNES Week: Day 5". NTSC-uk. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
  11. ^ a b Barnholt, Ray (2006-08-04). "Purple Reign: 15 Years of the Super NES". 1UP.com. pp. p. 5. Retrieved 2007-08-16. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  12. ^ a b D'Aprile, Jason (2001-12-25). "F-Zero Maximum Velocity (GBA)". GamePro. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  13. ^ IGN Staff (1998-07-14). "F-Zero X". IGN. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  14. ^ "Electronic Adventures", The Dallas Morning News, pp. p. 4, 1998-12-01 {{citation}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  15. ^ IGN Staff (2005). "IGN's Top 100 Games". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  16. ^ a b c d e Thomas, Lucas (2007-01-26). "F-Zero (SNES) review". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  17. ^ a b c IGN Staff (2002-03-28). "Interview: F-Zero AC/GC". IGN. Retrieved 2007-07-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ a b c d e Nintendo EAD, ed. (1991-08-13). F-Zero instruction manual. Nintendo. pp. pp. 3-5, 7–9, 11. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  19. ^ "F-Zero (Virtual Console - Super Nintendo)". Virtual Console Archive. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
  20. ^ "F-Zero Cheats". IGN Entertainment. CheatsCodesGuides. 1998-11-17. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
  21. ^ Anthony JC. "Gamecube Developer Profile: EAD". N-Sider. IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ IGN Staff (2001-03-08). "F-Zero: Maximum Velocity preview". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-04.
  23. ^ a b Harris, Craig (2001-06-14). "F-Zero: Maximum Velocity review". IGN. Retrieved 2007-12-10. One of the first titles for the Super NES was also one of the system's most technically impressive games as well -- when F-Zero was released on the Nintendo 16-bit system a decade ago, it offered the fastest, smoothest pseudo-3D racer ever conceived for a home system...
  24. ^ a b Parish, Jeremy (September 2007), "The Evolution of 2D", Electronic Gaming Monthly, no. 219, Ziff Davis Media, p. 107, ISSN 1058-918X
  25. ^ "F-Zero". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
  26. ^ IGN Staff (2003-07-08). "F-Zero Press Conference". IGN. pp. p. 2. Retrieved 2007-07-18. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  27. ^ a b c Thomas, Lucas (2007-01-26). "F-Zero (Virtual Console) review". IGN. Retrieved 2007-07-16.
  28. ^ "The History of Zelda". GameSpot. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
  29. ^ a b "BS F-Zero 2 Grand Prix". IGN. Retrieved 2006-06-19.
  30. ^ Harris, Craig (2004-09-20). "F-Zero GP Legend review". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
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