Starship

Starship is a port of the Star Fox 64 source code, developed by the same team that has worked on Ship of Harkinian and 2 Ship 2 Harkinian, that allows you to play this legendary Nintendo 64 game natively on PC. As with all other Harbour Masters projects, this download does not include any copyrighted content, so you will need to have your own copy of the game on your PC.

Choose the correct ROM

In order to use Starship properly you will need to have a specific ROM. It is very important that you use the USA 1.1 Rev A version, which you can dump yourself or download from another website. This is the only compatible ROM. All other versions of the game, especially PAL versions, may cause problems that will prevent you from enjoying the game. It is also essential that the ROM is in .z64 format. This is the only supported format.

Generate the OTR file from the ROM

Once you have the ROM of the game in the same folder where you unzipped Starship, all that's left is to run the file "generate_otr.bat". This process should only take a minute or two and will culminate in the creation of the "starship.otr" file. If this does not happen, you most likely do not have Visual C++ Redistributable installed. If this is the case, simply install it, a process that will take less than five minutes, and then re-run "generate_otr.bat".

A number of configuration options

One of the great advantages of Starship being a native PC game rather than an emulated ROM is that it can offer a number of dedicated configuration options. By pressing the F1 key you can display the top bar on the game screen, where you can access both the graphics options, as well as the special improvements found in this version. These improvements include everything from gameplay tweaks to content restorations.

The best way to play Star Fox 64

Download Starship if you want to enjoy this Nintendo 64 classic the way it deserves to be played. The absolute best way to play it is probably on an original console with its original cartridge and an original controller. But if you don't have that option, this is certainly the best alternative. Thanks to this small piece of software you can enjoy what is undoubtedly one of the best starship games of all time.