Star Fox 0

Erm.  I hate to pour black sticky goo over the Direct's principal bright spot, but...

That's a little sad to hear. Perhaps turning off the gyro controls will improve matters? It does seem a little odd that L and R aren't the buttons for doing a barrel roll - seems counter-intuitive.

Maybe the controls are customisable?

Hopefully. Maybe the graphical quality will jump up too before release - I did think it wasn't up to the standards of Mario Kart 8, to be perfectly honest.

Shock "first go on a game in an expo setting results in me being crap at the game" reports! These sorts of reports ALWAYS result in a shit game. Always. Skyward Sword didn't work for Shigsy on stage? Should've binned it off there and then. Splatoon was a pain for some people at E3? No wonder I haven't touched it since the day it came out.

Counter-intuitive controls and disappointing graphical fidelity aren't down to the "first go" setting though - those would be noticeable outwith the expo setting.

For what it's worth, I've heard plenty of good things about the gyro controls from folks on Twitter, barring a few quibbles about it being a bit fiddly at first.

It's a bit sad to hear about the poor response from the NL journalist. I think that since it's still an early-ish build of the game that these quibbles are to be expected. Graphically I thought it looked ok over the stream. Considering that the game is pumping out footage at 60fps to both the TV and the Gamepad is no small feat so there would need to be a hit somewhere.

I hate motion controls as a principle - the old "inaccurate motion to replicate an accurate requirement" problem; but Splatoon turned out to be not so bad, in that you don't need them most of the time, and it becomes more of an instinctive "shifting" (although I wish they'd let you look up/down with the right-stick). So I've got high hopes for this. Surely - SURELY - they would learn from the constant feedback? Surely?

The 60fps on both TV and gamepad is an excellent point but I still wouldn't say it was gamecube-esque or worse in the visual department like NL suggested, I had to laugh at that and then stop reading the article.

The landmaster tank desert stage that was demoed on the treehouse looked stunning.

It didnae look that bad, to be fair. Perhaps the gent (a) expected it to feel exactly like Lylat Wars and went sour when it didn't, or (b) was still in a fit of rage after the Direct-that-wasn't?

For those afraid that the apparently dubious gyro controls my throw a spanner in SF0's works, it has been confirmed that they'll be optional. So that's nice.

Cool. I wish that statement didn't feel as important as it did. I feel bad for poo-pooing Shigsy's "you can be like thunderbirds!" spiel, but regular controls were invented for uncoordinated divs like me.

Nothing wrong with that, I reckon! I'm sure they'll be grand and the game is obviously designed to work well with the gyro controls, but that sort of control can become trying fast. Glad to see it's optional.

Turning off the gyro controls in Splatoon made me wonder why they'd bothered making them the default in the first place. I'm happy we've got the option in SF0 too.

I hope you all don't switch them off without trying them first, I think they make much more sense in this compared to something like Splatoon (where I don't mind them one bit) as you will be fine tuning your aim by looking at the gamepad itself so it will feel more natural.

Good point, Jas - and that was the 64th reply in a Star Fox thread! Yes, I'll try the gyro controls before deciding... but the only time I've really clicked with them on the Wii U is Captain Toad.

ZeroJones wrote:

Good point, Jas - and that was the 64th reply in a Star Fox thread! Yes, I'll try the gyro controls before deciding... but the only time I've really clicked with them on the Wii U is Captain Toad.

Yahoo for me on the 64th reply - A tad funny you got on with them in captain toad as I wish they could be turned off in that game, not because they're bad but because they felt just so unnecessary to me.

You are all correct - I'm just pleased that they have programmed n options for this sort of thing.

Well, he's certainly wrong about the visuals, as it looks miles better than Assault's muddy, washed out textures and flat lighting.

I'm not sure *why* he thought the game was bad. The controls not working for him certainly seem like a personal issue, and a lot of the other criticisms aren't really criticisms. Complaining about the number of enemies in the game's first stage feels a bit pointless to me, and even then he doesn't explain why having a low amount of enemies is bad. He just says there's a low amount of enemies, as part of another negative paragraph.

The_Jaster wrote:

The 60fps on both TV and gamepad is an excellent point but I still wouldn't say it was gamecube-esque or worse in the visual department like NL suggested, I had to laugh at that and then stop reading the article.

The landmaster tank desert stage that was demoed on the treehouse looked stunning.

This, the criticisms in the entire piece are absurd. It's almost as if he's sour about the game because he was rubbish at it -- "how dare they make a game with controls I don't like!!!"

Stuff like this reminds me of how I miss NGamer so much. Even if the game *was* bad NGamer would make sure to wrap their criticisms up in a witty and entertaining way.

fronk wrote:

This, the criticisms in the entire piece are absurd. It's almost as if he's sour about the game because he was rubbish at it -- "how dare they make a game with controls I don't like!!!"

Bingo! The alarm bells were ringing when he said this:

Quote :

Someone who has gotten gold medals on every stage of Star Fox 64 should not have been reduced to such questions

Also surely if a sequel to a game is harder for you to get used to then that's a good thing as you are being challenged, not to mention in the space of 15 years your skill could easily have gotten worse.

[quote="The_Jaster"]

fronk wrote:

Quote :

Someone who has gotten gold medals on every stage of Star Fox 64 should not have been reduced to such questions

Also surely if a sequel to a game is harder for you to get used to then that's a good thing as you are being challenged, not to mention in the space of 15 years your skill could easily have gotten worse.

Oh yes, that bit was funny. I'm not even sure why that's a negative, and the game will have several difficulty settings in pure Platinum tradition.

I'll be going hands-on with this in a couple of weeks (it's at the next Hyper Japan convention), will post up my thoughts afterward!

Nice! I shall be looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

Fronkhead on his return: "Nintendo are w**kers, Star Fox 0 is f**ked, and you're a c**t for buying a Wii U."

Balladeer wrote:

Fronkhead on his return: "Nintendo are w**kers, Star Fox 0 is f**ked, and you're a c**t for buying a Wii U."

Hah! I was going to make a joke about that, but thought I'd better not jynx it!

That aside, some more Star Fox Zero impressions have gone up. The control setup comes into its own during all-range mode, where you'll need that extra breathing room for your laser sights, it would appear.

Important SF0 news: the walker is not a chicken.