The medium route in Star Fox 64 will take players through Macbeth, an industrial mining planet dotted with weapons factories. It is one of two areas in the game where the player uses the Landmaster tank. In this stage, the Star Fox Team chase down a supply train loaded up with weapons and fuel en route to a supply depot. The enemy chatter in this stage is dominated by the unnamed engineer of the train. The gorilla-looking engineer constantly taunts the player while the train weaves its way across a canyon, through a tunnel, and past numerous buildings.Toward the end of the stage the player has the ability to shoot eight switches to change the track, skip the boss Mechbeth, and send the train crashing into a weapons factory. Of course, these switches are on both sides of the track and often hidden behind gates and other obstacles. If the player has gone through Zoness, Katt Monroe will offer some help shooting switches.
Macbeth is also unique in many ways other than using the Landmaster. It has a long, but unspoken, time limit if the track is not switched. If the boss Mechbeth is not defeated fast enough an event will trigger where it can kill the player in one hit no matter how much health is remaining. This is unusual because stages normally go on as long as it takes to meet the area boss and defeat it. The only penalty for taking too long is a reduced score for killing the boss, not death. It's probably closely related to the chase motif of the level as a punishment for not stopping the train before it reaches its destination. Most players will probably never see this happen without actively trying.
A lot of Macbeth's history that never appears in the actual game is explained in the official Star Fox 64 Nintendo player's guide. Before Andross took over, the planet was the capital of the aerospace industry. Brilliant scientists and engineers settled on Macbeth to start up businesses and became amazingly wealthy. Companies formed to become bigger and bigger until they were all fighting to control the planet's share of the market. An outbreak of hostile takeovers and buyouts made it easy for the forces of Andross to invade Macbeth and take over. The miners, workers, engineers and scientists became nothing more than slaves and began to produce weapons for the Venom Army. One such product is the Copperhead Space Cruise Missile that shows up in Sector Z aimed at the Great Fox.
It also provides planetary info for Macbeth.
- Radius: 7,954
- Albedo: 0.25
- Gravity: 1.270
- Esc Velocity: 15.31 skm/s
- Equilibrium K: 230
- Atmosphere: N275 0220
- Hydrographics: 68%
- Biomass: 539 Quads
- Class: M
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