The Gemini squad ended up feeling like a real family, and that was a joy to play with my real family. Additionally, while all the characters did have a special ability, it never felt like any one ability was worse than the other Juno’s lava-walking skills weren’t more necessary than Vela’s swimming ability and so forth. She was the type of character I especially adored because she reminded me of myself-for better or worse. (Yes, I know there were female characters in some Donkey Kong games, but I wasn’t and still am not really attracted to the series for whatever reason.) While it felt at the time that many female characters were the “rational” ones or the “mothering” ones, Vela was all about kicking ass and taking names. What really got me into Jet Force Gemini over other Rare games, however, was the fact that I could actually play as a girl. I don’t think you’ll meet anyone who doesn’t agree that Rare’s collect-a-thon tendencies can get tedious, especially when one facet of that included saving Tribals as you completed a stage, but said Tribals were also not immune to your gunfire so you ended up accidentally killing a good chunk of them first time around.Īpparently the game was influenced by a lot of retro sci-fi, like Battle of the Planets. Nothing felt better than playing “King of the Hill” mode and coming out victorious. And despite the main game being mostly left up to my brother to complete, I played the multi-player mode obsessively. Then again, it’s not really the kind of game you play for the plot.Īt the time, I remember the controls for the game feeling amazing: it was like I was really in one of those sci-fi series, shooting things with my blaster and protecting the galaxy. …Like I said, there’s not much to the plot. Released in 1999 for the N64, Jet Force Gemini follows the Gemini team-comprised of Juno, his sister Vela, and their dog Lupus-as they try to bring down the evil Mizar before he ends up destroying the entire Tribal race with his bug army. The game may not have aged as well as other Rare titles, and what it presented in gender equality was equally undone in quintessential Rare style, but the game still remains one of my favorites. Sure, the story wasn’t anything innovative-and it still isn’t-but being able to play as a brother and sister team, as well as their dog, and working together to fight bad guys really appealed to me. Though I loved watching my brother play through these games, the first Rare title I dove into myself wasn’t one of these more well-known titles, but the third-person shooter Jet Force Gemini. From the Donkey Kong series to Banjo Kazooie (with some Killer Instinct on the side), these quirky games, with their distinct sense of humor, were absolutely some of my first forays into what video games could be. I, like many video-game-playing kids of the 90s, had a childhood filled with the whimsical worlds from the heads of those at Rare.
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