"The weakest entry in the Star Fox series yet"

As a lad I loved the Starfox games. The one on the SNES was amazing, I remember going to my neighbors and playing it. Then came Starfox 64. One of the reasons I got a N64. It even came with the rumble pack! I remember going to Wal-Mart just to play the first level over and over. I still rock to this day at the first level. After those two excellent games we got Starfox Adventures which frankly wasn't very good and changed the game into a platformer. Then Came Assault which mixed the two games. After it came The Starfox game for the DS, I already reviewed that game... How is Assault? Does it mix the two types well or does Nintendo have another turd on its hands?

Fox and company must stop an evil race of bugs from enslaving the world. Yeah, you heard me. Evil bugs. Our good friend Andross is nowhere to be found except in the form of a ship as a first boss and its lame. This does have the most character development of the games, besides Adventure but really I didn't care and it has such a cheesy ending that it ruined anything it had going for it up to that point. I seriously can't figure out why Nintendo can't follow a single plot line in any way, shape or form. Zelda is the same way and it's time line is so messed up that no one is currently able to figure it out. I did like how this game has almost everyone from the other games, even Adventure, except of course our big baddy but I guess we should be happy he has a cameo of sorts in the form of the first boss.

One thing the game does well is the graphics. The levels look fairly nice. I liked the jungle part of the first mission. Past that the game continues to look well, it's just the designs themselves that are weak. Character models look good. Oddly enough the CGI looks about par with the in game graphics. There is truly a lack in enemy design and the enemy models are so generic that it isn't funny. It's actually kind of sad how generic those enemies look. The vehicles in the game look alright though but are far from exciting.

The sound in this game is really just messed up. I finished just minutes ago and don't remember the music at all. Voice acting was pretty good, seemed like the same from the past game so if you liked it, then you'll like this. Not mind blowing but good. The sound effects really need work in this game. Yes, they don't sound half bad but it's the fact that I am shooting a gun and I hear it shooting and then while it's still shooting it just stops making the sound for a few sounds and then starts back again. What's that all about? Either way the sound in this game is just another horrible aspect of the entire package.

The control in the game is by far the worst I have ever seen on the Gamecube. Flying isn't too bad, if not a bit stiff. Flying is simple. R is shoot, Y is dash, and L is spin. You really don't need to know much more. The problem is that the aiming is a bit strict and forces itself back to a central area. That's just annoying. I really don't want to talk about the control during the ground missions. Aiming with the C-stick felt a bit awkward but I got use to it after a while. The problem really comes into play when you use one of the ground vehicles. I don't know what they were thinking but it's terrible. Not just terrible but it's so stupid that they set the controls the way they did that I can't understand it. The C-stick kind of turns and aims at the same time. The analog stick sort of turns you but if you hit left or right on it you could of strafe to that one side. It could be useful but it makes rest of the controls feel crappier than they need to be. I still find the Gamecube controller to be one of the worst of last gen but the Xbox's control with its black and white buttons is almost as bad.

So, Starfox Assault is split into 2 types of missions, spread out over 10 missions. Yes, only ten missions but we'll get to the length of the game a little bit later. As you should know by now, the game has flying missions which are classic to the series and then there are third person ground missions with vehicles. No clue why they added ground missions because they are perhaps some of the worst levels I've played in any game in a while. On the other hand it does break things up and some are half and half but to be honest I could have died a happy man if I had never experienced such horrid levels.

If you were to take away the vehicle portion of the ground missions it might have been fun. Scrap that, it really wasn't fun running around bland and repetitive hallways and wide open and empty areas. The enemies seemed like they were brain dead and while they would attack, that's about it. The game does throw tons of enemies at you all at once on the ground missions and thankfully they don't respawn of anything but in the end it just felt even more tedious than everything else.

The game does offer you goals in the ground missions and the map shows you where the stuff is, just hard to tell if it's high, on the ground or underground. This caused me some mild confusion at one point. The goals are kill these things, destroy this or protect this from that. All very simple and it never changes past that. I guess by todays standards it is hard to come up with something new but come on, maybe rehash some other things of more recent games.

The flying missions are all railing shooting bits except one is a dog fight level. I'd say it's about half and half with ground and flying missions. Not much to say about the flying missions though. Enemies come at you; you shoot and dodge, collect items and just make it to the end and fight the boss. Fairly basic but fun in the classic sense. It's what makes this game fun but the rest drags it down.

Speaking of bosses the game has its fair share; they just kind of die quickly. I wasn't impressed with any of them and their patterns were way too easy to learn. Most have giant pink glowing areas to show their weak points. That really takes away the challenge as you almost always know where to hit the bosses and even the last boss was a joke.

Starfox Assault took me 1 hour 47 minutes to complete. So yes, it is short. This is a rental for sure. It does have multiplayer but no one wanted to play this game so that's a no go for this review. But we'll pretend it's good but if its ground based then I doubt it. The game also has a high score mode and little things to unlock but I wasn't impressed with the unlock able stuff in the game.

If this game interests you still after reading this review then please just rent it. It really isn't worth the disc it was put on and if it wasn't so cheap I would have sold it or not have bought it at all. As of this writing I am really torn as to if I am going to keep this game in my collection or not, it really wasn't worth my time or money. On the other hand there may come a time where I get the dumb idea that I may want to play it again but that's why I write these reviews for times like these.

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 3/10
Game Play - 4/10
Replay Value - 5/10

Final Score - 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/07