Before you jump to any conclusions, such as, "This guy must be insane!", hear me out.

If you owned a Super Nintendo Entertainment System during the mid 90's, it's pretty likely that you played Starfox. It was the first fully polygonal game released on that incredible little system... groundbreaking, to say the least, since nothing as ambitious as Starfox had ever been attempted on anything less of a computer, due to the hardware limitations of the current fare of consoles. That is, until the Super FX chip crashed into the scene...

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See, Nintendo had great ideas regarding their 16 bit wonder. Instead of developing an expensive, graphic-enhancing add-on for the SNES, they developed better chips and bits to improve the visuals and slapped 'em right into the games themselves. It was a fabulous idea, considering that games were expensive as it was, and having to shelve out the cash for a system upgrade with a lifespan of a year, and likely only a handful of games, seemed like a half-baked plan with only one intention - to milk Sega Genesis owners for as much money as was possible.

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While I was growing up, I was biased against anything Sega...I don't know why - maybe because I never owned a Sega Genesis... but for whatever the reason, I stuck by the SNES to the bitter end. And you have to admit, it was a very powerful console, even with it's terrible processing speed (when compared to the Genesis, anyway).

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Alright, alright - enough about my ass-like trip down memory lane - Starfox was a huge hit. So what if it didn't have textures... and who cared that it wasn't full-screen...it was 3-D! .. sort of. It was 'on-rails', as some might say, because you could only move within a certain boundry without being stopped in your tracks by some invisible barrier. And the frame-rate sucked.

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But nobody really cared .. it was fun. Frustrating at times, but you couldn't deny that it was a good game. Sure, there were people who claimed that it was CRAP, but there's always somebody that heckles just for the sheer fun of being an ass. Starfox was here to stay.

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...or so it was thought. Nintendo announced development on a SNES sequal soon after Starfox made it big, something that probably excited any fan of the original.

Then the big N made another announcement - development was cancelled. Why? Well, they canned Starfox 2 in favour of an even more advanced upgrade on a later system, the Ultra 64 (now known as the Nintedo 64). Or so I'm told.

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Still, that really sucked - at any rate, I forgot about Starfox 2 for a long time, until I was snooping around an emulation site one day and found a beta rom for Starfox 2...just sitting there. I didn't even know a beta existed, so I downloaded it immediately. Even if it was just some cheap hack, I thought, "Why not?"

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I was pleasantly suprised to discover that this beta actually had the look of an actual game. had to choose my character from a list of 'em: Fox, Falco, Peppy, Slippy, Saru (?), and Lady {strange...). Then I got to select my stage: Ground, Desert, Magma, Park, Sun, Sea, Senkan, Asteroid, and Hidora.

Somethin' kind of interesting I found is that depending on what level you choose, the type of craft you pilot changes...and you can also morph into a secondary vessel during the level. Plus, unlike the original, in Star Fox 2 you fly completely free around the area, - no invisible barriers. In fact, you can probably fly into the distance for as long and far as you want...

Another really cool feature I noticed is the battle mode, similar to that found in Star Fox 64. Two people fly around a landscape or portion of space trying to blast each other. It's pretty rough around the edges, but playable. Star Fox 2 beta has quite a bit in common with Star Fox 64, in terms of upgrades, and you can even transform your ship during a battle as you can in a mission - the walker is somewhat worthless, and the little ball with the revolving wings is also pretty worthless, but cool none the less.

There are some other little nifty things about this game, but it's apparent it is very incomplete. The missions consist mainly of a wide open plain with very few enemies and sparse obstacles, but you can actually find bosses if you venture out of the limits of the levels. In the Sea, for example, you can encounter a snake-like sea beast, or in Park, there is a flying, armoured ship with those little flashing thingies you have to knock off...

It would have been interesting to actually see this game completed. It's not bloody likely that will ever happen, unless Nintendo decides to bring this out for the Game Boy Advance (which is a possibility I suppose). It's suprisingly enjoyable...especially battle mode...and the incomplete missions will keep you entertained for awhile, just to find all the little things that are different, like the missiles you know fire instead of bombs. The aforementioned missiles are practically worthless, but at least they home in on targets...

If you have a SNES emulator, give this game a look. It's a strange little piece of vapourware that's worth playing. If it had been finished, it would have been a great game, I'm sure of it, as far as FX Chip games go (went?). Hey, just download it and see what I mean.