 Usually when I title a video with something like what is such-and-such, it's geared in a manner that tells you about a game that you may not have heard of because it wasn't released in North America or it's not in English or something along those lines. But in this case I'm literally asking what is Space Station Silicon Valley? What is going on here? What's with the title and the strange cover art? How does this game have to cult audience? Why isn't it more popular? Well the start with this game was developed for Nintendo 64 by DMA Design, otherwise known as the people behind the Grand Theft Auto series. So while this may be Rockstar North, this isn't exactly a Grand Theft Auto game, but it does feature one of the most bizarre premises for a game I've heard of. The story takes place in the distant future of 2001, where a Space Station housing all sorts of different animals was launched into orbit to be used as some kind of space zoo or something I guess? Only for it to disappear without a trace minutes later. We fast forward to the year 3000, when the station suddenly reappears out of nowhere and is hurtling out of control toward Earth. So who else but danger Dan and his robot sidekick Evo to fly out to space and meet it head on and rescue civilization? And of course they crash, Dan gets stuck in the spaceship and Evo is all but destroyed except for one crawling microchip. But not all is lost because in the past 999 years, while the station was in purgatory, the animals have somehow evolved to incorporate some of the station's technology in their own biological makeup. This of course is very convenient for our hero because it now has the means to possess many of the animals on board. You just crawl and wiggle your way over and jump from animal to animal. So yes, Space Station Silicon Valley is a third person platformer where the character you control varies not only from level to level but from moment to moment. This is one of those Kirby style games where you have different abilities and limitations depending on what animal you're possessing. Some animals fit some sections of the game better than others, and it's up to the player to figure out how to navigate their way through the station across 35 stages and 4 worlds, finding pieces of Evo's busted up robot body along the way in the hopes of putting it back together. Many of the differences are obvious, like the mouse being very fast but also very small and can't take much damage. Other animals are big and strong but slow and can't reach certain areas and so on. Each animal has at least a couple of abilities it can use, and again in some cases their usefulness is obvious, like the dog's biting attack, but in other instances you'll have to figure out what to do with this ability. For example, the dog can bark. Now what am I supposed to do with that? Well, one puzzle has you directing sheep into a pen. And how do you do that? You have Evo possess the dog and round them up with your bark. It's kinda cool. The game is full of puzzles like that that plays off of each animal's unique traits and abilities. I don't want to spoil any other puzzles but I will say there's one involving a hyena laughing that is really cleverly done. But yeah, most of the puzzle objectives here are just about activating switches and unlocking new areas, and there's at least 40 different animals you can take control of. Penguins, bears, chameleons, camels, and some even have their own spin like this walrus with a motorized propeller. There's all sorts of stuff here. On the surface, Space Station Silicon Valley looks like a pretty generic early 3D platformer. This game isn't the best looking but to the game's credit it tries to implement a particular kind of visual style to its characters but everything ends up looking a bit muddled. So as a result the game blends in visually with a lot of other early 3D games of its time. But the thing is, I'm not sure any other game of the era can match the variety of gameplay that this game can offer. There's racing segments, flying segments, you can control a tank and blow stuff up, you can box as a kangaroo. Space Station Silicon Valley is so ambitious yet it doesn't ever feel like it's spread too thin. The controls throughout all the varieties of gameplay all feel consistent. The one flaw with this title is that apparently there's a bug involving collecting souvenirs that prevents you from seeing the game's proper ending so that's kind of a bummer. It's worth mentioning that this title also received ports on Game Boy Color which sees it reimagined as a 2D platformer which is pretty interesting. There's also a PlayStation port under the title Evo's Space Adventures. I haven't played it but the reviews suggest that the original development team barely had anything to do with it and it was a total half-assed port. So yeah stick with the N64 version of Space Station Silicon Valley it may not look like much and the soundtrack while good kind of blends into the background but this is a very inspired game with tons upon tons of substance. They cramped so much stuff into this title and it all works. Even the camera which always seems to be an issue in these kinds of games that behaves well enough here and doesn't cause very many problems. Space Station Silicon Valley overcomes the limitations of the early 3D era with the sheer force of creativity and imagination both in the game's premise and execution. Highest recommendation for this game.