XGRA Interview

[A Black Falcon]

Oh come on... this game looks good! All of the XG games have been very fun... XG2 is definitely my favorite, but all are good. And as for XGRA, those four Designer's Diaries at IGN are quite interesting... I didn't realize they analyzed those things so much... those diaries go into extreme depth on things like how to design interface, characters, etc, etc. Quite an interesting read, IMO.

Hmm, questions.

Will the Mirror mode be back in the game (like XG2)? Or Reverse? Or multiple track variations like XG2? That'd be great... XG3 suffered from just 10 tracks after XG2 had 72 variations on its 12 tracks...

Oh, how many tracks?

Are difficulty levels in the game? They added some life to the first few games.

How many races in the main campaign? XG3 had only 27... it should be much longer (XG2 had 50).

Is the sense of speed from XG3 completly intact, or was it (max speed) lowered like it was rumored? It should be kept...

How exactly does this new weapon system work? Can you have multiple weapons at the same time (like normal gun and special weapon), or just one special weapon that you change with those powerups?

How will it compare to F-Zero GX...

How will the new philosophy of "make it like a real racing circuit" affect the in-race gameplay (other than sponsor signs on the tracks)?

What else... hmm. Oh, why not more bike variety? XG3 had just one model! I've heard XGRA has three models, but XG1 and 2 had a whole bunch of racers each with unique bikes... or is there more to it than just 'choose one of these three bikes' for the gameplay (customization of settings or parts or something?)?

That's probably good for questions.

I'd ask "why don't you make it more like XG2, with track variations, mirror mode (and maybe even a new reverse mode), that games' weapon system (though this new one does sound a lot better than XG3's... I'm interetested to see how it turns out...), a long campaign (XG2 has 50 races! And its really hard! Though admittedly it would be a LOT, LOT easier without its evil save system that only saves after every 4 races... Oh yeah, I wouldn't want that save system back. :) ), the battle multiplayer mode, etc" (and "where did the team that made XG1 and 2 go? They should be making XG games, not the new Cheltenham developer!", but it just doesn't sound nice... or productive. :)

I know it seems like everyone preferred XG3... so I guess they succeeded for many people. I just don't. I know why... not many people played the PC version of XG2... so they suffered those horrendous framerates that really killed the game on the N64... and XG1 just wasn't as good as 2 or 3.

I know they are making the bike and racer selection matter again... which is a nice change. It was so dumb in XG3 that all the bikes were identical...