Click the logo for an F-Zero trailer (3:09, 20.7MB MPEG)

It isn’t 1991 anymore. Your parents are divorced, Grandma’s long dead, and your crippling bitterness makes every day worse than the last. Sega and Nintendo are also making sweet arcade and console love. Funny how these things work out.

It’s not all bad though, there’s a new F-Zero game on the way, and it’s being made by Amusement Vision, the creators of the fantastic GameCube launch title Super Monkey Ball. GC is the fourth of the F-Zero games, and it seems to be the next obvious step from F-Zero X: more tracks, more cars, more speed, and monkeys in balls!

Unfamiliar with F-Zero? Well, for the inexperienced, the series is made up of lightning-fast arcade-style racers, where you take a cast of humans and aliens around a slew of different tracks at insane speed. Each track has its own feel and personality, and as any old F-Zero fan will tell you, some of the best mood music around.

Don’t have a GameCube, and yet are still one of five people who still frequent arcades? You’re in luck, too, as Nintendo and Sega will also release F-Zero AC in the not-too-distant future. It’ll be a duplicate of the GC version, except with a large flashy cabinet that’ll make all the girls melt. You’ll also be able to bring your save from the GameCube version into the arcade via your memory card and use that information in ways which no one has yet revealed, although it’s expected that it will somehow enable a second friend to play as a fairy that drops bombs on the other cars.

F-Zero GC is shaping up to be the next huge Cube title. It runs at a silky 60fps and brings you an even greater sense of speed than any previous F-Zero titles, or any other racing games ever for that matter. The GameCube hardware allows more cars on-screen at once, and the game plays much like the original. Expect a multiplayer mode, tons of cars, and tons of tracks.

I wish Grandma had lived to see this.

Features:

• Multiplayer racing action
• Pico!
• Updated graphics engine to make the world stop and say, “Ooooh”
• Bring your memory card to the arcade and do something with it
• The always present possibility of monkeys and/or balls
• Other classic F-Zero characters besides Pico, like Captain Falcon
• Cars
• Port Town, Big Blue, and all of the other locations you’ve grown to love

· · · AFX