Back when the first F-Zero released, shortly after SNES hit the stores, it sent waves through the whole video game industry with its 3D graphics and sense of speed. As one of the first hovercraft racing game, F-Zero altered what players would expect from racing games. Now about 10 years later and another version of F-Zero later, Nintendo's popular racing series is now on GBA. The game is basically an enhanced port of the SNES game.

This game story is set 25 years after the original F-Zero. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity uses the same control scheme that made it so fun to play. The A button is used for acceleration, and the B button is the brake. The directional pad obviously lets you move left and right, while pressing either shoulder button will give your craft some grip going around the turns. Once you complete each lap, you are rewarded with a boost that can be used by simultaneously pressing both shoulder buttons. When playing Maximum Velocity you will be frustrated until you realize that the best way to make turns is to tap the accelerator. The sharper the turn, the faster you need to tap. When you finally master the technique the game will be alot easier. When you first start the game there are only four crafts to choice from, with six to unlock as you get further through the single-player mode. Each craft is rated on boost strength, boost time, maximum speed, and turning performance. The crafts rating makes the craft perform differently then others on the track. Getting use to your craft is important.

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity includes four gameplay modes, with the grand prix mode being the single-player mode. The grand prix mode is broken down into series that are named after chess pieces. When you first start up the game, you only have the pawn, knight, and bishop series available. Once you beat all three of the game's first three difficulty settings, the queen series is then unlocked for play. To beat each series, you must beat 14 other drivers over a circuit of five races. To go to the next circuit, you must come in first overall. Each race consists of five laps, and with 15 vehicles on the track at once there is plenty of tension. Each hovercraft has a power meter that that lowers when it takes damage, and when the meter is empty the race is over. As you complete each series on the expert difficulty setting, an almost impossible master difficulty setting is opened. With dozens of events and multiple difficulty settings, there's a great deal of time to be used up from this game.

There are two multiplayer modes in F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, depending on the number of cartridges available. If you have just one cartridge between four different GBAs, then just one track and hovercrafts are available, and music is played only through the host GBA. The loading time for each multiplayer race when using one cartridge is longer a lot than 10 seconds, as the game data is transferred from the host GBA to the other three units, but if all the GBAs have cartridges, then all the tracks, vehicles, and audio options are available. While the lack of options in the four-player linkup with one cartridge is kinda disappointing, the number of tracks and vehicles available in the other gameplay modes are enough to over shadow the other problem.

While F-Zero: Maximum Velocity isn't the most visually impressive GBA games, it still improves on the SNES version in every aspect. The hovercrafts are now completely animated so now their flaps that break and steer can be seen adjusting. The backgrounds that scroll as you ride around corners feature a variety of colors, but some of the off-track environments are barren with only very limited animations like blinking lights and shorting circuits. Also Mode 7 scaling and rotation is used to simulate 3D movement and crafts, and the effect is quite nice. Also you can see far enough ahead in the track that you get time to prepare for the sharp turns.

While F-Zero: Maximum Velocity may not be revolutionary in any regard, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity is still challenging and very addictive racer. With plenty of new tracks to unlock, vehicles, and multiplayer modes to explore, it won't be for the dusty shelves for a good while with such games like Iridion. To anyone who has never liked the gameplay of the previous F-Zero games will certainly not like Maximum Velocity, but this version is more than enough satisfy players who like the series.