Star Fox: Assault is a difficult game to review. Excellent from a presentation point of view, it none the less takes the well-worn path of workman-like offerings with unsatisfying gameplay that never can sustain any real excitement – even over the very short duration of the game’s main story mode. Add to that a four-player combat mode that regrettably chose to use the least appealing parts of the single-player mode for most of the action, and you have a game that can’t rise above just being respectable.

There have been four (five if you count the unrelated and abominable Atari 2600 game of the same name) Star Fox games. The franchise launched in 1993 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a space rail shooter in a cartridge that actually required piggyback hardware in the cartridge, known as the “Super FX” chip, to pull off the unique look and play of the game. This first game did quit well, as did the generally upgraded Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 64 console. Nintendo then saw fit to take the Star Fox series in a new direction with Star Fox Adventures, an action/adventure game in the Zelda vein that was not as well received. Star Fox: Assault goes back to the series’ more familiar shooting roots.

Star Fox: Assault finds Star Fox team leader Fox McCloud along with team members Falco, Krystal and Slippy (I promised myself I would not take any cheap shots at Slippy during this review … no matter how much he deserves them.) as they are hunting down and destroying the remnants of the defeated Andross’ fleet. Just as Fox destroys the leader of the remaining Andross rebels and it looks as though peace will return to Corneria and the rest of Lylat system, a new threat rears its ugly and mechanical head in the form of the Aparoids. So it is Fox and crew once more to the rescue. A great joy to the fans, the space shooter gameplay is back and the dogfights are very exciting. The control of the Arwing space fighters is superb with the usual pulse cannon and bomb armament that can take down the biggest boss with enough hits. Also returning are the great evasive maneuvers that allow players to roll, loop and Immelman (a half loop with a snap roll at the top) out of some very sticky situations. Star Fox: Assault is at its best and most entertaining in the flight stages.

Unfortunately there is a dark side to the game: the “All-Range” stages. These stages have Fox getting out of his Arwing fighter and slugging it out with the bad guys on foot or in a Landmaster armored vehicle. These levels, which are new to the series, are what ultimately hurt it the most. And there is no way to avoid them since they make up fully half of the game. Here the limits of the GameCube controller as a shooter control make themselves felt. Developer Namco thoughtfully included three control modes for the player to pick from, but none are adequate to raise the on-ground elements of Star Fox: Assault above solid mediocrity. I found the “dual-stick” control scheme, the one that most closely approximates the Halo configuration, to be the most intuitive for me.

With any of the control modes, Fox just does not handle ground combat well. It can be very difficult to target and lock onto enemies. The Landmaster, while a powerful little beastie with a kickin’ cannon, is even harder to maneuver effectively to lay the firepower down on the multitudes of bio-mechanical baddies that have to be taken out to complete a stage. No matter what the stage type, Fox always has his team with him to fight by his side. But based on the way they fight, they should have been called Team Load instead of Team Star Fox. About the only thing these incompetents do is get into trouble and then scream like six-year-old school girls for help. If Fox can get the enemies off their tails they’ll stay in the fight. If he can’t they will turn tail and retire from the battle. This does not seem to alter the course of the battle, but it does reflect in the player’s stage score and the badges earned, which unlock things in the games. For example, earning 10 silver-level badges unlocks the classic arcade game Xevious.

Completing the story mode at any level of difficulty will unlock the “Survival” mode. Talk about your booby prizes, survival mode challenges the player to play the entire game without saving. This can actually be done since the whole game is short enough to be finished in a single afternoon.



Like Star Fox 64 before it, Star Fox: Assault offers a multiplayer versus mode to extend the life of the game. Unfortunately the versus mode is based too much on the gameplay of the all-range stages. The all-Arwing levels are cool, but there are not enough of them. Playing a certain number of matches in the versus mode will unlock items for versus play, but it is very unlikely that many rounds will be played and items unlocked before the hardcore multiplayer gamers go back to playing Halo 2 on their Xbox consoles. It might keep the younger crowd occupied for a time though.

The true bright spot in the game are the graphics and audio. Both are top notch for the majority of the game. Again it is the ground missions that hurt the graphics at all. Getting too close to stuff at a slower pace gives the player too good a look at the textures that make up things and the effect is not nearly as impressive as the visuals in flight. The soundtrack is appropriately heroic in nature. The sound effects are really good, something that cannot be said with the same enthusiasm for the voiceovers. They are a little hammy, and if anyone can keep a straight face as Panther says, “All who see my rose die.”, is a better man than I am. Again, I think a younger crowd may appreciate it more.

Ultimately Star Fox: Assault is not a bad game. It has some good stages and good production values. Unfortunately, when for half the game the player is surly thinking, “Oh no! I’m on the ground again.”, it does not speak well for the overall package. The game is also a bit short with an inferior multiplayer function that does not add much beyond the single-player game. The good stages and superior presentation make this a solid game worthy of an above-average 3.5 Sharks, but the plodding ground action hobbles this game and keeps it from ever rising to the top of the heap.