Friday, June 1, 2007

Future Wii franchises: Star Fox

This is a new segment I'll be doing, and in it I'll be detailing franchises I feel need to come to the Wii. I'll be kicking off the festivities with Nintendo's famous space-ship dogfighter, Star Fox.



Honestly, this is one of the first franchises I thought of when I saw the Wii remote and it's abilities, and I'm quite surprised Nintendo hasn't even hinted at this yet. There would most likely be several different control methods, but here are two I thought of.

The first control scheme would be point the Wiimote up to go up, left to go left, etc. You could bank your turns by pressing right or left on the analog stick, depending on which way you're turning. Up on the analog stick would trigger a loop-dee-loop, and down would initiate a U-turn. The famous barrel roll would be done by pressing both the B and Z triggers simultaneously, and brakes would be delegated to the A button. Firing would be handled with the C button. Bombs are used by hitting any direction on the D-Pad.

Another possible control scheme would be pretty much the opposite of the first. Steering would be relegated to the analog stick, and banking would be left to the Wiimote's tilt sensors. Pressing left on the D-Pad would initiate a loop-dee-loop, and right would start a U-turn. The barrel roll would again be left to the B and Z triggers, and brakes would be C. Firing would, of course, be handled with the A button. Bombs are launched by pressing down on the D-pad.

The game could also take advantage of another of the Wii's aspects: Online gaming. This has already been done in the franchise with Star Fox: Command, but the Wii could take things to the next level. There would, of course, be Friend Codes, players would also be able to play against strangers. Every time you log on, you'd be greeted with a leaderboard and the statistics of your last few rounds. You'd then have the option of starting a Friend Code match or a ransom match. You could then choose from a variety of modes, such as a best two-out-of-three one-on-one or a race to a set amount of kills against multiple opponents. A stage would then be randomly selected, and the fight would begin. After the fight, if against random opponents, you would then have the option of adding some of your foes to a list of rivals. Rivals would be a Friend Code subsection, where you could duke it out against any of your rivals met throughout your online experiences. This would be a great way to gather a collection of opponents without having to exchange Friend Codes.

That's my take on how Star Fox should work on the Wii. What do you guys think?

The Duck Has Spoken.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What do I think? I think if Nintendo doesn't come out with a Starfox game for the Wii, I'll be pissed. That's what I think. :P

Well, I just hope that they stick with the flying parts of the game like in Command and Starfox 64. Starfox Adventures was fun but there's nothing like flying around in your Arwing and blowing shit up!

Anonymous said...

Ummm no you don't want to stick to 10 seconds flyng (Command) We need on-rails shooting, that's what Starfox really is and some open-range to spice things up a bit.
On the controls, I had thought a very similar control method to the first one, I'm very fond of it :P But would't shooting with A be more um practical than C?

PsychoDuck said...

@ Okami:

You see, I thought of using the A button to shoot in that one scheme, but I figured it'd be a little difficult to hit A while turning, considering the Wiimote's tilt sensors would be used for steering. It'd be kinda hard to hit the A button if your whipping the Wiimote around, don't you think?

The Duck Has Spoken.

Anonymous said...

I'm bookmarking this blog. I enjoy reading what you have to say on Gonintendo, and your page here is equally interesting, so I'll be stopping by often :)

On topic, I think that Star Fox should have multiple control schemes, since so many options are available with the Nunchuck/Wiimote combo. I personally like the control they use in WW: Smooth Moves for the Starfox 64 boss minigame. If they just up the sensitivity, it would be just about perfect. And they could map controls to the d-pad and other face buttons.

Anonymous said...

@ okami

I didn't mean exactly the gameplay like in Command and Starfox 64 but staying in the Arwing. I don't want to have any more adventure-like parts on foot although Starfox Adventures was fun.

CMM1215 said...

This was also one of the first franchises I thought of making it to Wii. Star Fox has been one of my favorite series since I was around 6, and sadly, the only game in the series to get it right since Star Fox 64, in my opinion, is Command.

I think it's about time Nintendo gets back to what made Star Fox good originally. Nintendo EAD developed Star Fox 64, for first and foremost, we need that team to reassemble as best they can.

I think it's time that Nintendo returns to the excellent branching path system found in Star Fox 64, as well. Its structure offered a great sense of replayability, which is something that Star Fox Adventures' and Star Fox Assault's single-player severely lacked.

Multiplayer also needs to be worked on. Assault was a step in the right direction, but I think it needs to be pushed a little further, with more of a focus on Arwing combat than anything.

In terms of other ways to fight opponents...I'd like to say, "no" to on-foot combat. However, if EAD did handle it, then it could turn out well. So, who knows, I suppose I shouldn't rule out that possibility.

In terms of online, I'd only expect it to be more robust than Command and its lack of options.

I don't know about the control schemes you outlined, though. I probably couldn't come up with anything better though, so I can't really say anything.

Anonymous said...

Star Fox Wii needs to have 4 player....co-op! Going through the game where your wingmen are actually people would be perfect.

Anonymous said...

DANG,I'VE BEEN ADDICTED TO THIS SERIES SINCE I WAS 6,THE WII GUYS NEED TO ENCHANCE THE GRAPHICS,AND THE CONTROLS,I RECKON THAT OLD CLASSIC WII CONTROL IS THE BEST OPTION,NOW,MULTIPLAYER,THEY BADLY NEED CO-OP,I REMEMBER LYLAT WARZ[A.K.A STAR FOX 64]SLIPPY WAS THE MAN AT GETTING KILLED,YOU KILL AN ENEMY TAILING HIM,NEXT SECOND"OH NOOOO,FOX GET THIS GUY OF ME",WOULDN'T BE GREAT TO HAVE SOMEONE BE SLIPPY AND NOT HAVE TO SAVE HIM ANYMORE?

Anonymous said...

that is a great idea. star fox is cool, and there are only five games of it. we have benn without a good star fox game for a long while. they should also add a lot of new stuff too, like characters. and it should have a versus mode, because games that just have a story get boring once you're done with it. the versus mode should have a lot more characters to choose from. star fox 64 had 4, and star fox assault had 6 characters. they should feature all of star fox, and all of star wolf. they should also put characters that were never playable like bill and kat. while they're at it, they can put general scales for all i care, as long as it's more than 4 or 6 characters playable on versus mode.