N-Philes

Star Fox Command

Posted September 7th 2006 by Adrian DeHerrera.

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Let me start by saying that as much as I love this series, the characters have slowly morphed from cute pixilated cartoony characters to more "realistic" human-like characters – yet now with new emo love stories and more barf-inducing angst than you can shake a Myspace blog full of bad poetry at. Fox and Krystal have been involved in a budding romance which has been torn apart by Fox's decision to force Krystal to leave because apparently it's too ridiculous to think a female can effectively fight evil, just like in the Catholic Church. On more horrifying fronts, Slippy the Frog has also found love in Amanda, a pink frog-creature who was successful in turning Slippy straight, or more probably has no idea Slippy is flamingly gay. Sure there are other plotlines here that involve Peppy becoming a captain and intergalactic amphibian people wreaking havoc, but for the most part, the player is bombarded with quirky yet disturbing details about Krystal, Fox and Panther Caruso's love triangle and other elements that have nothing at all to do with explosions. As much of a fan I am of love stories, I've been too tainted by learning about the "furry" subculture (thanks, Internet!) to enjoy any of the romantic storylines in this game. I mean does anyone really want to imagine Slippy's wedding night? I just hope they have barf bags on my Arwing.

Slippy Toad mating rituals aside, how were the graphics and sound, you may be wondering, after puking your guts out. Visually, the game is more impressive than I was expecting, even moreso when played on the DS Lite versus a regular DS. Whereas the ships themselves each have their own personality with different speeds, weapons and distinct style, environments, unfortunately, suffer from "generic mountain/space/water syndrome". After a few hours it doesn't really matter which planet you're visiting, you may as well either be in the Colorado mountains or the bottom of Lake Erie. I wish there were more distinct locations to recognize. Regarding sound, the music is exactly what you might expect - classic-sounding Star Fox tunes with uplifting fanfare; crisp and effective, but like the locations, not exactly memorable. I like that the characters themselves speak in garbled nonsense (it's like walking down the street in New York City!) because the more I hear voice acting in videogames, the happier I am that videogame voice actors probably, and deservedly, live in crippling poverty.

And since many of you out there are excited to dogfight on the Nintendo DS, I'll let you know that you can relax and enjoy knowing that wireless and Wi-Fi battles don't completely suck. Hey, that's a compliment! Choose "Wi-Fi Battle" and you'll be able to destroy friends or total strangers for space supremacy. (Caution: If opposing player's name is in Japanese writing, chances are you will be totally humiliated and your exploded furry corpse will be chewed up and spit out on its way down to its fiery demise.)

I was lucky enough to be invited to play in a Nintendo-coordinated dogfight session with other journalists and the bottom line is that "Battle Royale" mode rocks. It doesn't rock as hard as say watching F.L.U.D.D. die, but once you get a hang of the controls, it's a mad dash to find upgrades to your weapons, cloaking devices and, of course, giant obliterating power bombs. Since I had already put in a few hours into the game and was pretty comfortable with the controls, I was willing to go a little easy on my opponents. Stupid mistake. The name of the game here is aggression: never let up your fire, never stop boosting and get to those power-ups. Once you realize that the dogfights really aren't sky-cruises with shooting but instead non-stop aerial beat-downs, you'll be upping your stats and wishing that the DS supported headsets in which to humiliate others. Still, the array of weapons and power-ups is relatively small and more could have been done in the way of obstacles, but neither during my first dogfights or any Wi-Fi battles since then have I encountered lag or freezing and people have been pretty good at not dropping out before losing.

So although Star Fox Command isn't going to keep me up all night playing, and doesn't completely rival its predecessors on the SNES and N64, it's a game that keeps you interested with multiple endings, strategy and big replay value. Be sure to skip through any dialogue that even begins to insinuate romantic involvement between animal-human hybrids and conversations might even be construed as enjoyable. With solid Wi-Fi dog-fighting, decent graphics and sound and stylus gameplay that isn't a simple gimmick (shock), Star Fox Command lifts its leg and pees on its GameCube bretheren.

Steady Beat - Ready for take-off.

Starfox Command for the Nintendo DS is solid all-around with a lot of room for improvement. More weapons. More power-ups. More memorable locations. LESS romance with more explosions. I'm definitely looking forward to the next instalment and that is way more than I could have said for Star Fox Adventures. Sure, one-player mode is a bit on the easy side, but if you decide to take out all of the enemies on the screen and shoot for revealing all of the endings, you get what you put into it. Big replay value and a polished final product (with Wi-Fi!) is what should convince you in to investing in this title.

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