Games
The first game in the series and a launch game for the SNES, F-Zero was also the first Super Nintendo game to use a technique that Nintendo called "Mode 7 Scrolling". When Mode 7 was combined with scaling and positioning of the layer on a scanline-by-scanline basis it could simulate 3D environments. Such techniques in games were considered to be revolutionary in a time when most console games were restricted to static/flat backgrounds and 2-dimensional (2D) objects. The result was developer Nintendo EAD creating the fastest and smoothest pseudo-3D racer ever on a console at that time.
| 1990 – | – F-Zero | |
| 1991 – | ||
| 1992 – | ||
| 1993 – | ||
| 1994 – | ||
| 1995 – | ||
| 1996 – | – BS F-Zero Grand Prix | |
| 1997 – | – BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 | |
| 1998 – | – F-Zero X | |
| 1999 – | ||
| 2000 – | – F-Zero X Expansion Kit | |
| 2001 – | – Maximum Velocity | |
| 2002 – | ||
| 2003 – | – F-Zero GX – F-Zero AX – GP Legend |
|
| 2004 – | – Climax |
Years later, BS F-Zero Grand Prix was released for the Super Famicom's satellite-based expansion, Satellaview. It was released in separate parts, and featured an update of the first game. It was followed up by BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2, an expansion which featured brand new courses.
Zero Racers (G-Zero), was a canceled game for the Virtual Boy. The game was previewed by Nintendo Power. Gameplay differs in one important point from its predecessor and all F-Zero games released afterwards. In Zero Racers, unlike other F-Zero games, the vehicles race in all three spatial dimensions in tunnels.
After a seven-year hiatus outside Japan, the series made the transition to 3D with the third installment, F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64. The game introduces 26 new vehicles, while also including the four from the original F-Zero game. In addition to a Grand Prix mode, the game introduces a "death race" mode and a random track generator called the "X Cup". In the death race, the player's objective is to annihilate the 29 other racers as speedily as possible, while the X-Cup generates a different set of tracks each time played. The hardware limitations of the N64 resulted in the game running at 60 frames per second with thirty machines on screen at the same time, but with little processor power left for graphical detail and music.
A Nintendo 64DD expansion, F-Zero X Expansion Kit, was released in Japan as the last add-on disk for the system. The Expansion Kit added a course editor, a vehicle editor, two new cups, three new machines and new music. The course editor was the main attraction of this expansion, and was praised for its depth, as it was virtually the same program the game's designers used to make the courses.
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity was the series' fourth released installment, but the first incarnation of the franchise for Nintendo's Game Boy handheld. It was the first title developed by first party subsidiary Nd Cube. This Game Boy Advance (GBA) launch title returned to the SNES F-Zero's gameplay with a Mode 7-styled game engine.
F-Zero GX was released for the Nintendo GameCube and developed by Sega's Amusement Vision team, and is the first F-Zero game to feature a story mode. The game was initially titled "F-Zero GC". The arcade counterpart of GX was called F-Zero AX, which was released alongside of its Nintendo GameCube counterpart in mid-2003. The game had three types of arcade cabinets; standard, the "Monster Ride" and the deluxe which resembled an F-Zero vehicle. F-Zero AX had six original courses and ten original characters. However, by certain difficult means, the six courses and ten characters could be unlocked in F-Zero GX.
F-Zero: GP Legend is the second handheld game released for the Game Boy Advance and the second installment featuring a story mode; however, this one is based on the anime series of the same name, introducing a new character named Rick Wheeler. Unlike the games before it, GP Legend takes place in a different period of time, the 22nd century, rather than the 26th.
F-Zero: Climax was released exclusively in Japan for the Game Boy Advance on October 21, 2004. Like its handheld predecessor, F-Zero GP Legend, Climax was published by Nintendo and developed by both them and Suzak. This is the first F-Zero game to have a built-in track editor without the need for an expansion or add-on. Custom tracks can be saved to one of thirty slots for future use and they can be exchanged with other players via link cable. If memory becomes full or link cable connection cannot be done, the game can generate a password for the track; when it is input on any F-Zero Climax cartridge, the password will generate the track. Although unlike the previous F-Zero games, the traditional 30 racers on a track was limited to 24 now.
Read more about this topic: F-Zero Series
Famous quotes containing the word games:
“In 1600 the specialization of games and pastimes did not extend beyond infancy; after the age of three or four it decreased and disappeared. From then on the child played the same games as the adult, either with other children or with adults. . . . Conversely, adults used to play games which today only children play.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)