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Star Fox Assault

It has been almost a decade since I played a true Star Fox game, and when word reached my ear of Star Fox Assault, I jumped with unrestrained joy. This was mostly because this meant that I could wash out the bland taste that Star Fox Adventures left in my mouth.

The story of Star Fox Assault picks up practically where Adventures left off. You have to fight off the remaining forces of Andross which are now commanded by his nephew Andrew. Things quickly change though when a new threat is introduced to the series - an alien species called Aparoids. The sole purpose of these aliens is to consume all life. Your mission, on the other hand, is to completely annihilate them.

Assault is just like the previous Star Fox games in the series, as it's a simple, old school, shoot-em-up. Hardly any skill is actually involved in completing the game, and I clocked in at about three hours. To break up the Arwing missions there are also Landmaster and foot missions where you must fight the Aparoids on ground or within buildings. I personally enjoyed the Landmaster and foot missions because it gave the game a battlefield-like feel with dozens of enemies running about around you. On one particular mission to the Dinosaur Planet you have to utilize all three styles of game play, and during the mission you have to destroy specific targets that are scattered throughout the terrain. To do this you must use the Landmaster to quickly travel from target to target. Some targets, however, are deep underground, and you have to jump out of your Landmaster to head through the winding corridors on foot.

The controls in the game are fairly simple. All the Arwing controls from the past are back: shooting, bombing, boosting, looping, and barrel rolling. In addition to the Arwing controls, there are also the Landmaster and foot controls. The addition of these makes the transition slightly confusing when you're forced into one of these modes. For instance, when I started on one of those missions I began trying to shoot with the A button only to find that no laser was fired from my blaster. I quickly realized my mistake, though, and began to shoot with the proper button, R. It's nothing big, but I found myself doing that multiple times throughout the course of the game. The foot and Landmaster controls can also bring extreme pain to your index finger, especially if you are trying to go for a higher medal. My index finger practically became numb with the pain from all of the constant shooting required.

The graphics of this game are really stunning, and I was most impressed with them. The Arwing and Landmaster look almost lifelike, containing all the screws and bolts that would be seen on such a machine. The landscapes were also done very well, containing a variety of scenery. The level that I thought epitomized this was Sauria. It contained three different temples - one large and two small. These temples looked exactly like those from Adventures. Along with those were plenty of trees, rocks, and sick Dinosaurs strewn about the landscape. The only point in the game where the graphics suffer is when you see Fox on foot. He pales in comparison to his Adventures counterpart. He looks flat and lifeless and his running animations are stale. In addition, the wonderful fur effect that Rare used is missing in this incarnation.

During the game you are treated with an impressive musical soundtrack orchestrated by the Tokyo Symphony. They bring the Star Fox theme to life with orchestrated beauty, giving the game an epic feeling. The only thing that would make such music better is to be able to experience it through surround sound. The downside to the in-game sound, though, is the voice acting. If you thought the voice acting in the N64 version was horrid, wait until you hear the poor excuse for acting found in Star Fox Assault. Fox sounds like he hasn't been through puberty. Slippy is back, unfortunately, as well as his equally annoying father. I felt like socking Slippy's Dad every time he popped up to give me my mission briefing. That's how angry he made me and he didn't even do anything! Well besides talk. The other voices in the game are miles ahead of Slippy's but still not good. They all sound lifeless and un-enthusiastic about their slaughter. Not only are the voices bad, but you can barely hear them when the music is playing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes you focus on the subtitles for information on the mission.

Assault is a fairly short game. Like I said earlier, I beat all ten missions in about three hours. The length of the game would have to be my biggest complaint, as it seems that just when you really start to get into the game, it ends. Of course, there is some replay value to the game, multiplayer being part of it. There are tons of different ways to play multiplayer, one of them being Sniper Showdown. In this mode you have to do exactly what the mode's title describes to find and eliminate each other. Another type of multiplayer is entitled Crown Capture, and in this mode one player must find the crown and keep it for as long as possible. Not only are there plenty of multiplayer to be had, there are also plenty of things to unlock from the main and multiplayer games. When you get enough medals from the main game you can unlock the NES shooter classic Xevious. Also, during the main game you can unlock additional multiplayer maps and weapons.

This game gets an N-Philes score of B.

While this addition to the Star Fox universe is a blast, it is just too short. Added to that problem are others such as shoddy voice work and horrible sound mixing. The replay value makes up for the shortness of the game, but I don't think that it makes it anymore fun than it was previously. Multiplayer could have also used the addition of LAN compatibility to make the game more hectic and fun. Ultimately, it just doesn't live up to the grandeur of Star Fox 64 even though it is longer and offers different styles of gameplay. It would be best to give this game a rental then decide whether it is worth your fifty dollars.

Posted in: Reviews