Fox McCloud first appeared on our screens in the SNES game Starwing (Starfox in Europe), which was the first game to use the SuperFX chip which allowed the SNES to produce full 3D graphics. Both the game and the SuperFX chip were designed by the sadly now defunct UK developer Argonaut, in conjunction with Nintendo. At the time Argonaut were best known for the Starglider games on Amiga and Atari ST, which were some of the first proper 3D games of the time.

Starwing put you in control of Fox McClouds Arwing, a sleek space fighter craft. You were also accompanied by your wingmen Slippy Toad, Falco Lombardi and Peppy Hare, who were also piloting their own Arwings and would help (and hinder) during the battles to come.


You flew your craft into the screen, blasting enemy craft and ground installations and avoiding moving blocks. You could move the craft up, down, left and right, and by holding the shoulder buttons could fly with the wings vertically, allowing you to negotiate narrow vertical gaps. Double clicking the shoulder buttons would make the craft do a roll, which allowed incoming laser bolts to be deflected. The ship could also thrust forward for a short time, or brake and hold back, which allowed you to time your passage through moving obstacles.

Starwing was great fun, if a little short, although it did provide several possible routes through the game so it was quite replayable. A sequel appeared on the Nintendo 64 called Lylat Wars which was pretty similar in structure, with the addition of some free roaming flight levels, although Fox’s first appearance on Gamecube was to be the third person arcade adventure Starfox Adventures. This game was developed by Rare, and was originally destined for the N64 as the Fox-less Dinosaur Planet.

Starfox Adventures had some wonderful graphics, with Fox’s furry tail being a typically useless piece of graphical fluff (if you’ll excuse the pun), but the game itself was pretty standard run around the level collecting 5 of a certain object to give to an NPC in exchange for access to the next part of the world. It did have a few token flights in the Arwing, but these were very short and felt a bit tacked on.

Currently, the most recent outing for Fox and company is Star Fox Assault, developed this time by Namco, which is more of a return to the space shooting of the original game, although there are still some levels which require running around on foot.

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