Upping the ante.
**shakes self out of flashback mode** Regardless, little before, if anything (I think Wipeout may have edged it), had thrust upon unsuspecting N64 gamers what F-Zero X pumped through our screens. A screaming, borderline excessive soundtrack, an enormous plethora of colourful and imaginative cars and looping, psychedelic tracks, and above all, an idiosyncratic lump of face-melting speed to boot. This was godly.
F-Zero GX arrived, weirdly, as its quiet, understated cousin some years later, carrying on Nintendo's perhaps most overglanced franchise (yes, yes, I'm hearing STAR TROPICS from someone somewhere) to... well, applause. But very quiet, understated applause. Seriously, unless you were an F-Head like me (one's born every minute donchaknow), GX's arrival will no doubt have passed you by just as likely as George Michael will announce another retirement tour before wrapping his mini round a lamppost after sticking catnip up his rear end. The actual story passed me by, as irrelevant as it is.
Lack of hype/publicity aside, F-Zero GX was under scrutiny from the word 'YOU GOT BOOST POWER' (see what I did there? Am't I clever?). Would it live up to its meaty predecessor, seeing as it was now merely adding another game to the 'really-fast-and-lotsa-cars-and-they-race-and-some-of-them-die-and-oh-it's-set-in-the-the-future' genre? Sorry, I'm being told that the ACTUAL genre is referred to as 'Futuristic Racer'. Seriously? It has a genre now? Represent!
Anyway, let's cut to the (ahem) chase. Visually, GX takes the admittedly pop-up laden freakout tunnels from X and switches them into glorious, thick and colourful track designs with personality and characteristic. The characters and cars are less faceless (read: enigmatic), each one of the gargantuan range of 40 pilots now carrying a storyline around their necks (every one of them somehow coming back entwined with Captain Falcon PAWWNNNCH if I remember rightly). A similar soundtrack resonates; albeit sounding less like a series of Aerosmith B-Side instrumentals and more stylised (the casino theme in particular straying from the X trend of 'LET'S TEAR IT UP WITH MASSIVE GUITARS'). The difficulty has been beefed up, too. There's an immense amount of modes, features and secrets to unhaul, and even after playing through Story Mode (hell yes, there is one) as far as possible without wanting to throttle Silver Neelsen for begging me to PULEEEEASE ENTER THE BET RACE, whipping my way through classic mode or trying to annihilate those offensive staff scores, after three years of playing GX I have only ever managed to unlock two of the ten secret pilots.
It's hard to big up GX without slamming X, but it's so damn easy to do. It's like it's been given botox, and it's gained 500lbs. It's so big and sprawling-all-over-the-place that you only give up playing through exhaustion. The series has been given a mighty overhaul, and any X-heads out there that STILL haven't had a taste of possibly the finest racer I've witnessed (and I've played a few), you are probably few and far between, but you are also missing out on a truckload of excitement.
Sadly forgotten by the masses, this is one that's lurking in the shadows of your more realistic racers, and the fact that it was released at a point where Sony and Microsoft had Nintendo by the balls didn't aid it any better. Revisit this before it becomes too retro to resell.