Gaming off the Beaten Path

Of all Nintendo's first party franchises, F-Zero probably gets the least love. I think I made it pretty clear when I reviewed F-Zero GX last year that I think it's BS that Nintendo hasn't released a new title in the franchise in going on 20 years. But while it has gotten a handful of sequels and its certainly seen more releases than its futuristic racing brethren, I've always felt Star Fox is a close second on the big N's "let's not make any more games in this franchise" list. It seems like no matter how hard they try, Nintendo just can't capture what made the old Star Fox games so great. The series' most recent entry, 2016's Star Fox Zero, was met with mixed reviews and is generally regarded as okay at best. Star Fox Assault on the GameCube had its moments, but was an overall disappointing experience that I found to be incredibly lacking. I've already offered my thoughts on Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet and its complete deviat

Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet I have complained at length on this blog about popular gaming franchises receiving a pass for putting out lousy or even average games.  This is especially true of Nintendo’s first party standbys. In the 25+ years I have been playing video games, I can count on my hands the number of titles based on Nintendo IPs that received bad reviews.  If you don’t count the CD-I titles (and you shouldn’t), you could probably count them on one hand.  Take Mario Party titles out the equation and its down to one finger.  Look, Nintendo rarely makes bad games, but there are a number of titles from their extensive catalog that would have received an average at best reception if they weren’t Mario/Zelda/Metroid Etc.  All of those Zelda handheld titles come to mind.  Hell, the mainstream gaming media tried to convince us that Mario Clash was worthy of an 8/10 back in the day. Now that I’m done ranting, we can actually talk about this we