It's November 22nd, the day that Europe finally sees the release of Rarewares first and last GameCube title, Star Fox Adventures, and the infamous wireless Wavebird controller. We have been waiting ever since Dinosaur Planet was moved from the N64 to the GameCube and then saw it turned into Star Fox Adventures. Funny how a game that was developed in Europe gets released in Europe last, but the wait is over and the game has finally hit European shores.

Those of you who read my launch day report for Eternal Darkness will recall I didn't have many pictures cause I was not allowed to take them, the manager of the shop said I had to get permission from the chains head office. And I was able to get it in time for this big launch�phew.

So I finished work at three o'clock [pm duh ;)] got home ASAP, but staying within the speed limit of course. Had a quick drink of orange juice and hoped back on my motorbike for what should have been a 15-minute drive to Waterford city centre but thanks to traffic it was almost 40-minutes.

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This is a picture of the Gamesworld entrance of course, sorry about the poor quality�shoddy flash on the camera. There weren't any big posters or anything about Star Fox unfortunately, but hey unfortunately I seem to be living in a Sony oriented area :P

And so I entered the store and got my pre-order receipt ready, took a look around for the manager of the store, he wasn't around so I figured I'd wait since he'd know me and what I was doing.

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Above is a quick shot of the GameCube games display in the store. Hmmm FIFA out selling Mario? Well those are the times I guess. And if your wondering why 007 Nightfire and Medal of Honour are on display when there not out for a few weeks yet the stickers on them say, "Pre-order you copy now".

When Padraig (the manager) showed up after about five minutes or so he recognised me right away and processed my pre-order and handed me my copy of Star Fox Adventures and my brand new Wavebird controller, Wohoo.

He then asked me if I wanted to take some pictures, of course I said yes and he quickly nominated the closest staff member to him who had no idea what was going on.

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Above is Gamesworld staffer Brain modelling the Nintendo's latest PAL region releases with a nice big smile. Big thanks to Brian for being such a good sport for the viewing pleasure of thousands of GameCube fans from around the world.

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And who's that? Why it's yours truly of course. Thanks to Padraig for taking my picture as I firmly grasp my newly bought items. You can really tell the height difference between Brian from the last picture and myself can't you. What can I say I'm only 5 foot 5 or something, they say you don't stop growing till your 21 so I got two years left�

Unfortunately nobody else came in to buy either Star Fox or a Wavebird while I was there, but I was told that they had sold five copies of Star Fox before I came in, I forgot to ask about Wavebird sales but I'd presume the people who bought Star Fox would have also bought a Wavebird.

So with that I quickly got back to my motorbike to zoom home, and it started raining on the way too and I forgot to pack my waterproof pants so I got soaked� oh well.

My first impressions of both Wavebird and Star Fox. Well the Wavebird is dead cool, my GameCube is inside this press that my TV sits on top of so I thought I'd test how well the Wavebird transmits with solid objects in the way so I set up my cube, popped in the Star Fox disc and set up my Wavebird, turned it all on and closed the press door. And it worked perfectly, awesome stuff, big hand to Nintendo.

And Star Fox, well graphically outstanding as expected. The strange foreign language in the beginning of the game confused me a bit, I thought the language settings where not set to English, stupid me� well I don't remember reading anything about characters speaking in strange languages ok.
Not sure bout the combat system, a bit button bashy, I thought it would be similar to the system from Ocarina of Time.

Well that's my Star Fox and Wavebird launch day story, so if you'll excuse me I got a game to get back to. Big shout out to Gamesworld Waterford for their cooperation and putting up me.

- Franklin Hughes (aka X-treme Cube)