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Star Fox Super Nintendo
As the leader of an elite squad of anthropomorphic animal pilots, fly throughout the Lylat star system in the prototype Arwing spacecraft to prevent the galactic conquest of a mad scientist in this 3D shooter for the SNES (with real-time polygonal graphics powered by the new Super FX chip).
Star Fox (known in Europe as Starwing) is a 3D sci-fi shooter developed by Nintendo EAD (with assistance from Argonaut) and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on March 23, 1993.
Set in the Lylat System, a star system inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, players control the Arwing (a prototype fighter spacecraft) of Fox McCloud (the leader of the elite Star Fox team) as he and his three squadmates (Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad) journey throughout Lylat (in one of three main paths) from their home base in Corneria to counter-attack the invading forces of Andross.
Similar to other scrolling shooters at the time, the player does not have the ability to freely navigate the playing field; the controlled Arwing moves in a fixed linear path. Despite this, players can move the Arwing around their plane of movement (dodging enemies and obstacles while aiming at enemies in front of them) and perform special abilities to evade enemy fire (including boosting, braking, and barrel rolls). While most of the game is in the third-person perspective, the game can switch to first-person at certain levels.
It is the first game to use Argonaut's Super FX co-processor chip, giving the game the ability to render advanced 3D polygons in real-time. Nintendo EAD would later use this chip, as well as Star Fox's graphical style, for Stunt Race FX.
The game nearly received a sequel for the SNES with an improved version of the Super FX chip. Dubbed Star Fox 2, this sequel would have introduced a non-linear campaign with real-time strategy elements (where players have to traverse the Lylat System to liberate planets and prevent the conquest of Corneria), full ship control (instead of on-rails movement), and new playable characters (with new playable ship types). This version was nearly complete before being cancelled (due to the release of the Nintendo 64), although the alpha version was leaked onto the internet. Despite the cancellation, the original game would still spawn a series of shooters, starting with Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 64 (which includes the "full ship control" mechanic from Star Fox 2).
A special promotional version of the game, known as both Star Fox: Super Weekend and Star Fox: Official Competition in United States and Star Wing: Official Competition in Europe, was distributed to gaming shops in those regions in 1993. Thousands of copies of the game were made and most were later sold through the Nintendo Power magazine. In this version, players have four minutes to rack up as much points as possible on three new levels (two of which are modified from the main game) with infinite lives.