Being that I've played the adventure portions a good bit both at E3 2000 (on the N64) and at E3 2001 (on GameCube), I decided to focus entirely on the Arwing gameplay during my most recent session with Star Fox Adventures at the Atlanta Cube Club.

The controls are exactly the same as in Star Fox 64, except that I couldn't get a somersault to work...dunno if that'll be included in the final version or not. Anyway, if you can zoom your way through SF64 any day of the week, this stuff will be a breeze, because it plays exactly the same. Here are the differences I noticed:

- Drastically better graphics (duh)

- No lock-on lasers or bombs

- Only takes one laser power-up to get the twin ion blasters

- No wingmen

- No somersault (or U-turn, but this was an on-rails stage anyway)

I had hoped that clicking the L or R trigger once would start a barrel roll, since pressing them through the analog range tilts the Arwing accordingly all the way to sideways. Unfortunately, you actually have to click the triggers twice to roll, which I think is a bit excessive. The Cube Club demo only has one Arwing level to play (but two different map selections go to it...weird), and it is a pretty short asteroid level. You're told to fly through ten gold rings to get through the "Gatekeepers Forcefield" (note the curious lack of apostrophe), and in true Rare fashion, there are only ten rings in the whole level. Miss even a single one, and you fail the mission...though they do let you keep flying until the end. It took me several tries to finally get all ten, and I'm a pretty experienced Star Fox player...but hey, what did you expect from the company that made you collect hundreds of tribals in Jet Force Gemini?

All in all, the Arwing mission really feels like a teaser. Whether it's a teaser of the other (more complete) Arwing missions in SFA or of a real Star Fox game in Rare's future, we'll just have to wait and see.