Star Fox 2 Impressions

The original Star Fox 2 is an unreleased Super Nintendo game that tried to expand on the original Star Fox by letting you transform into a tank. Now, after numerous follow-ups to the original Star Fox, Nintendo is finally taking another stab at an actual sequel to the original game in the form of a four-player multiplayer deathmatch game.

At the start of the Star Fox 2 demo version, you can choose from a handful of characters from the Star Fox universe, including Fox, Slippy, and a few others. The game actually starts with your characters on foot, armed with a laser pistol. The object is to take out your opponents, and as you run around you'll find various weapons to pick up. But the real prize is found in the hangar. If you can find one, you can hop in an Arwing and take the battle to the skies with the classic controls you'd expect from a Star Fox game. You can attempt to shoot the Arwings down from the ground, but the heavily armed Arwings can strafe the ground and attempt to gun you down with their powerful cannons.

While the air controls are what you'd expect from a Star Fox game, the ground controls are a little weird. Rather than use both analog sticks for a typical third-person shooter control scheme, the game uses the left stick to look around, but the R trigger makes you move forward. Other buttons let you execute sideways dives and other acrobatic maneuvers. Perhaps the final game will give you more control options.

Star Fox 2 will also have some sort of single-player component, but it isn't really being showcased at this time. We'll have more on Star Fox 2 when it becomes available.