Earlier this month Nintendo kicked off their E3 Digital Event with some rather brilliant puppets straight out of Jim Henson’s studio – puppets with an equally brilliant announcement to make. The long overdue and much anticipated next instalment in the Starfox franchise, Starfox Zero, is on its way to WiiU this holiday season.
During the show, and at various preview events, Nintendo have demonstrated how Starfox Zero utilises the WiiU’s second screen in the Gamepad, and how this will be used to look around your Arwing’s cockpit. The news of the game being reliant on motion controls, however, caused somewhat of a fuss amongst fans at the time, who weren’t convinced by the unconventional control method. Thankfully Nintendo UK have confirmed in a statement that Starfox Zero’s gyro-based scheme “can indeed be switched on or off”. Do a barrel roll in celebration, you heathens!
It’s still a bit of a mystery how exactly the game will work without waving your Gamepad around, as Shigeru Miyamoto himself said that the cockpit view is and integral part of the experience and all but essential to accurately target some enemies during combat.
In other Starfox Zero news – that will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody – it looks highly likely we’ll see an Arwing amiibo in stores alongside the game at the end of the year.
“We’re creating lots of different types of prototypes of Arwing amiibo,” Miyamoto told IGN recently. “Earlier, we talked about how the 3D model of the Arwing will actually transform in the game. We have an actual model and we’re thinking how much it would actually cost to make when it’s transformable. Can we actually do that? We’re thinking about a lot of different things right now.”
During the Super Smash Bros amiibo reveal later in Nintendo’s E3 video we saw a Falco figurine for that game, which we can safely assume will be joined by Fox, and perhaps even Peppy & Slippy before Zero’s launch. The Falco amiibo is confirmed to grant Starfox players “an in-game present”, although again details are thin on the ground at present.
So, there you have it, perhaps Starfox Zero will bring out first fully functional transforming amiibo. That’s one I’d definitely like to stick on my shelf beside the adorable Yarn Yoshi and not-so-special Plastic Mario™.
Source: Nintendo Life, IGN.
Kennykazey
I’d buy an Arwing Transformer with Amiibo functionality.
I don’t understand why you’d want to play the game without motion sensors as that’s how the game was designed. But I suppose gamers with handicaps could benefit.
Arn-Hahhhad
“Can we actually do that?” Google “Transformers Toys” and you’ll know.