"Someday, there will be a bad Star Fox game. But it won't be today, and it won't be Assault."

When I heard a new Star Fox game was coming out, I was ecstatic. Star Fox 64 is one of, if not my all time favorite game. I expected this game to be good, but after Star Fox Adventures, it was hard to hope that this game would meet the caliber of Star Fox 64. That said, I still went out on the fourteenth (the day it came out) and shelled out $50, all on my gut feeling that it would be at least as good as Star Fox 64.

This is, without a doubt, the closest thing to a perfect game I have seen in a long, LONG time.

The flying portions in Star Fox games have always been good, traditional rail shooting. This, of course, requires that the controls are good and responsive. Using the right analog stick to move and aim both is something that I have always enjoyed in video games, and it would have really annoyed me if this game had featured the “one analog moves and another one aims” control scheme. Not that that would work too well with a rail shooter anyway, but I was still suspect. Luckily, Nintendo is smart enough to not ruin a game completely by making the controls infuriating. The A button fires your main lasers and the B button fires a bomb, as always. The shoulder R and L buttons control brakes and barrel rolls, respectively. Although I'd have liked to have R control barrel rolls (Press Z or R twice!), this certainly isn't an issue unless you've just finished a few hours of Star Fox 64. The X button controls boost, and the special techniques (such as summersaults) work incredibly fluidly with the C Stick.

The gameplay works perfectly with the controls. The basic style of free range and straight ahead modes remains from SF64, and they work perfectly as ever. The mission on any given level is “shoot everything that isn't your ally”, and unlike many other games, it actually works well. The other combat styles (Landmaster tanks and on foot) work well too, but they're more like frosting on a cake. A moist, creamy, chocolatey, ice cream filled cake… Mmmm… Cake… Err, right, the Landmaster. Unlike in previous games, this time the Landmaster works with missile-like ammunition. You can no longer spam the Landmaster's attack to destroy everything in sight within two seconds, and this makes the various modes much more balanced. On foot, you get a variety of weapons, including sniper rifles and rocket launchers, that you can easily switch to with the C Stick.

The best part of the game must be the levels where you can swap between all three modes of attack. The franticness of blowing stuff up with a Landmaster, jumping out and running through a gauntlet of enemies to your Arwing, before taking to the skies to stop an enemy's advancement is something I have never seen pulled off this well before. It's a rush, but it's not annoying.

The graphics can easily contend with the greats (Metroid Prime, for example), and although certain textures may seem blurry, it never deteriorates the gameplay. Land based levels are especially great - there's really not much to show in space, after all. Exceptionally great are the cut scenes, which look better than most CGI movies I've seen. Anyone who says this game doesn't have amazing graphics lacks the magical ability of sight. The problem is that the explosions aren't that great. They all basically look the same. And for a game where nearly everything can explode, this can be slightly bothersome. Still, the design more than makes up for this. Everything just looks so natural. The enemies, for example, are a bit “out there”, but they remain cool and shooting down twenty or so in a row doesn't seem very repetitive. The bosses and characters are especially cool looking.

My taste in video game stories is a bit odd, so you can take my word with a grain of salt, but I loved the plot of Star Fox Assault. You start off after the events of Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Adventures – Krystal is on your team now, replacing Peppy (he's still around as your advisor, though), and Falco has returned to the team. Your mission looks like its going to be a fight against Andrew, who's has taken over Andross' army. This quickly changes when a new foe emerges in the form of Pigma, the Star Wolf team member, and the aparoids, who seem to have been involved with the original Star Fox team. What happens is a story of betrayal and sacrifice to save the universe from a shadowy foe. It's overdone in old movies and such, but it really works well here, in no small part due to Star Fox characters working very well with the plotline. I must say, though, that more than a few things seem to have been ripped directly from Star Trek.

The best part of the game, for me anyway, is the characters. Fox is the leader trying to fill his dad's shoes. Peppy is the wise old sage who is like a father to Fox, Falco fills the cocky ace-pilot role nicely, Slippy is the screw up who's finally started pulling his weight, and Krystal is the love interest. What makes the seemingly ordinary characters stand out is their interactions with each other during cutscenes, or just depending on if you do something special during gameplay.

The only real problem with this game is the length. I beat the main story mode in about 4 hours, and that is very short by today's standards. But you know what? Screw today's standards. Back in the day, we beat games in one sitting and we enjoyed it. Back in the day, we beat games in under an hour and we enjoyed it. Still, a longer storyline would have made Star Fox: Assault that much better. Or rather, a branched storyline. If you've played Star Fox 64, it was very short, but it had three main paths and several combination paths that made the game at least three times as long as it would normally be. That would have been nice here, but it seems like it would have been fairly hard to integrate with the plot.

Replay value, on the other hand, is remarkable. Much like the 64 version, I don't think I'll ever get tired of playing this game. However, that's just me. Other people won't continue to play the story over and over. There are a few things to do, such as getting all the medals, but even that shouldn't take you very long if you're good at the game.

Which is why there's multiplayer. You're only given a handful of stages to play on and a handful of characters, but there are dozens of unlockables and since the multiplayer supports are three modes of transport, it's fairly balanced. There are a few problems with the multiplayer involving your “stun time” and such, but for a casual game between friends, it's a blast.

There hasn't been a game this good in a long, long time, and hopefully Star Fox: Assault will act as a breath of fresh air to the game industry. If all games were this good, instead of being lame interpretations of horrible concepts like several other games released recently (I'd give names, but I'm already on the fanboy hit list and I don't like pushing my luck), I'd be on very happy gamer.

Buy this game.

Star Fox: Assault is very deserving of a spectacular 9.8/10. Barrel roll on, Star Fox team, barrel roll on.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/17/05, Updated 11/29/05