My adventures with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was a weird deal. It's not heavily regarded as a great system, but for some reason, I've got a lot of loyalty to it. There were a ton of kickass games for the system, some well before their time, and some that still hold up against the new games coming out for the super systems.

One game that I became completely engulfed in was Starfox. I've always felt this was a fantastic game, even though most of my friends hated it. Thing is, I usually loathe shooters, and especially simulation game shooters. But this one was different, it had an odd charm about it, and was really addictive.

A lot of people don't know that my nickname, MacBeth, is as a result of this game. Sure, I'll tell smart girls that I'm a Shakespeare fan, but truth be known - I named myself after one of the planets in a video game.

That was half of the fun for me - the fact that the game literally had all these different worlds. You couldn't really explore them, but they were definitely pretty different. Add into that the fact that there were three paths you could go to reach victory, and you had some serious gametime on your hands.

The best part, of course, was the Out of This Dimension secret area. This was a pretty well-kept secret section of the game. The Black Hole world was one of the secret sectors, but word got out pretty quick. Out of This Dimension kept up it's mystery till long after the game went out of style. And it was totally fucked up...if you beat the main guy, who was a giant robot slot machine, you'd end up just sitting there shooting the letters in the Nintendo logo. And there was no way to end it! You had to press reset or shut the power off to stop it! It had really eerie music too, you totally felt like you were someplace you weren't meant to be. It was like sneaking backstage at a concert or something. You could get that feeling from a fucking Nintendo game!

You were Starfox, ace pilot. You also had three other guys on your team, a bird, a rabbit, and a frog. I don't remember their names, but all you need to know is that they got mighty pissed at you if you shot them. A key factor of fun in this game was letting them die and hear their death cry. They really didn't help Starfox anyway, mostly they just got in the way.

As for the bad guys, mostly they were giant robotic creatures at the end of each world. The final villain was ultra-surreal though. Firstly, the background was this spiral of colors, and all you saw was this giant marquee face that spat polygons at you and then sucked them in, trying to take you with them. Note that none of your teammates were around when a big bad guy was attacking. Lousy bastards. Anyway, if you got past this guy, he'd turn into a monster cube. Beat that, and you win the game, and receive a pretty impressive ending.

For those of you who still have an SNES, here's some tips and tricks for the game. If you don't have it, I'd definitely reccomend picking it up...

Out of This Dimension:
When in level 3-2, shoot the second giant asteroid on the right side of the screen until it explodes. Chase the egg that flies out of it, and fly into the claws of the bird that will hatch from it. You will warp to the Out Of This Dimension area, where you will contend with lots of paper products! If you succeed in surviving to reach the giant slot machine, shoot the arm of it until you hit the triple lucky 7 jackpot and you will be rewarded with the "Secret Ending."

Twin blasters:
If you fly through ALL of the archways in stage 1 of any of the 3 levels, the Twin Blaster power-up will appear in the largest archway. In level 1-2, before you reach the grey Supply Rings, look for three gold asteroids in a triangle formation. Fire through the center of the triangle and Twin Blasters will appear on the other side (or photon Twin Blasters, if you already have Twin Blasters).

Black Hole Warp:
In level 1-2, before you reach the grey Supply Rings, you will see three asteroid bars (each made up of 4 gray asteroids with a gold one in the center). Destroy the first 3 bars (by waiting until you are as close as possible, then blasting the gold center asteroid). If you are close enough when you destroy them, a grey laughing asteroid appears. Blast it and enter the Black Hole it reveals. Three exits (which look like grey Supply Rings) are within. The first goes to level 2-4, the second to level 3-4, and the third to level 1-4.

The Whale:
The whale will appear on the Amoeba stage of level 2, the one ending with the spinning, long-armed boss (the stage right before Venom), but only if you do not shoot any Blue Sting Rays. It appears just before you reach the boss, and drops enough power-ups to give you full energy, a shield, double twin blasters, and 5 nova bombs.

Just how informative is X-E, anyway? :)

As some of you are sure to notice, most the screenshots on this page are from Starfox64. Why? Because the world has chosen to ignore the fact that the original Starfox ever existed. That's what we're here for...to tell you the TRUTH! Starfox64 may be great, but let's give a little more credit to the original, which you can probably find at your local Funcoland or in the clearance sale racks of video stores.

Reccomended? Highly.

-- Matt
matt@x-entertainment.com
AOL IM: C9C MMM dX