A great game ruined by an awkward control scheme.

+

1) The interstellar sci-fi artwork is very unique. I have never experienced an N64 game with this kind of feel before. I like it.

2) Killer soundtrack. The dramatic orhestrated music really adds a lot to the gaming experience. Each musical score is very complimentary to each kind of environment.

3) The game play is very addictive. You kill off some enemies, move to a new area, kill some more enemies, collect some items, and it just keeps going.

4) Three different characters to play.

5) The content seems to have a very broad appeal. It has big guns and explosions, which would appeal to a teenager-adult audience, and somewhat cute characters which make it appeal to a children's audience.

6) Realistic motion capture movement.

7) Each enemy can be fought a different way.

8) The constant shooting, explosions, and dodging is very addictive. Reminds me of Contra.

9) The walking movement isn't too slow, and not too fast.

10) The story adds some depth to the environment.

11) Great menu design. Just going through the menus was a fun experience.

12) Awesome level design. There are large areas, narrow corridors, different themed areas, jumping platform puzzles, different monsters to fight, straight corridors, bended winding corridors, and just basically a wide variety of different things in each level. The artwork for the levels is also very aesthetically pleasing.

-

1) Once again, Rare has left me stranded in an unfamiliar land without a map.

2) The control scheme is very awkward and difficult to get used to. It took me about an hour before I figured out that I'm supposed to hold R when fighting enemies. When I'm holding R, it's difficult to move around and aim all at the same time. It requires too much eye-hand coordination. If they could just make it so that I didn't have to hold R, and I didn't have to move around as much, then this game would be much more fun. It would also be useful if the game told you that you're supposed to hold R in the first place.

3) Text instead of voice acting.

4) The opening cutscene shows me a bunch of planets, a battle on a ship with some aliens, and a ship crashing on a planet. However, it does not tell me exactly where I am. Is this 2000 years into the future? Is it a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? What's going on here!? At the beginning, the game should give you some background information before you start, so that you know who you are, what you're doing, and why.

5) The interstellar artwork looks a little cheesy at first.

6) Aiming with the N64 joystick is much more difficult than aiming with a PC mouse. If this game were on the PC, it would probably be much better. That way I could just point and click on the enemies that I want to shoot.

7) You really have to be an experienced gamer with good eye-hand coordination to play this game. The difficulty level may scare away the inexperienced children's audience that owns this console.

8) Readjusting the camera is an action that I perform quite often. A cool sound should play when I do that. Nintendo had that sound in Super Mario and Zelda, but strangely Rare has been reluctant to having camera movement sounds. Not just in Jet Force Gemini, but all of their games.

9) The artwork doesn't vary enough. Almost all the areas had basically the same plastic, intergalactic feel. It should vary a little more.

10) Although the soundtrack was very complimentary to each environment, it lacked one crutial element: it wasn't catchy. Games like Super Mario and Zelda all have catchy tunes in thier soundtracks, and so do famous films like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. This game, however, does not have catchy theme music.

11) This game requires way too much precision aiming, which is something that the N64 is not good for. I honestly think that this game would be much more fun to play on the PC where I can just use the mouse to aim.