"Star Fox 64 : Evolved."

Simply put, this game is just brilliant. Like others, I'm exceedingly surprised that Namco actually came out with this one. They took an already masterful game, Star Fox 64, and its basic operation and syntax, and did it for the Gamecube in style. They did that, and oh so much more. Although the actual game is limited to the engine, the engine itself is spectacular. Let's just get on with the review...

*WARNING: I do tend to riddle this with spoilers for most to all of the Star Fox games. So honestly, if you don't want to know about it, skip to the end... or, at least, past the "Story" portion. *

STORY - 7/10
The biggest reason for this portion achieving a seven is because the game doesn't follow the usual pattern of "oh Andross is up to his old hijinx", "chase Andross", "find Andross", "kill Andross" as every other Star Fox game has. They've taken characters from the previous installments, thrown in some new ones, and just spiced things up all over the place. Instead of Andross, we have a whole new race to worry about, the Apparoids. They're some pretty scary creatures, powerful, and can posess living creatures and machines. Star Fox's own crew is the same as Star Fox 64, though Peppy has retired and Krystal has taken his place. Wolf O'Donnel is back, with his partner Leon, and a new partner, Panther. Andrew and Pigma you fight at one point or another in the storyline. *ANOTHER SPOILER MARK (FOR THIS GAME)!* You even end up joining forces with Wolf towards the end, and they learn some stuff. Oh, and Peppy does some really crazy suicidal things left and right... *END SPOILER* basically, they do some really interesting stuff with these characters. If you're a fan of the Star Fox series, this storyline probably won't bore you.

GAMEPLAY - 10/10
Yes, ten marks out of ten. The general gameplay engine is genius. They followed the same general pattern of Star Fox 64. We have one storyline taking us through one level at a time. Some of these levels are "Shooting" levels, where you're in your Arwing 100% of the time, firing charge shots, launching bombs, saving your crew from being attacked, them rewarding you with items, fighting big bosses, so on. Again, not messing with a good thing.

Then there's also the "All-Range Mode", where you could essentially fly wherever you want. Well, in Assult, you can fly wherever you want, too... AND drive wherever you want, AND run wherever you want. Here's the deal. Fox can enter and exit his Landmaster, land and take off his Arwing, or run around on foot and shoot his wide range of weaponry as much as he wants in an all-range mode level, vehicle permitting. There's one general task to complete, like destroying some objects or defeating enough enemies, but how you go about it is up to you. Do you get in the Landmaster and try to storm them by force, go in by ground with your machine gun and grenades and H-Launcher, or assult them from the air with an array of bombs? The freedom of this style of level only adds to the excitement Star Fox already offers, creating one hell of an engine.

GRAPHICS - 8/10
I gotta say, not QUITE as impressive as Rare's graphics. What lost it here was the amount of detail on the characters themselves that's gone down from Adventures. Apart from them, everything else is perfect for Star Fox. The bomb explosions actually LOOK like bomb explosions, the environments are large and interactive, and the loading times are quite short. No complaints here.

SOUND - 8/10
All in all, pretty good. The sound effects falter once or twice, but that's about it; most of the time all the SFX are well timed and classic Star Fox. Voices are actually sort of well-synched in this one. The music is very fitting to the theme and a lot of it is very catchy. They've remixed some old Star Fox themes from the past that a Star Fox veteran will recognize, though there's nothing hugely spectacular to note in that department.

MULTIPLAYER - 9/10
The multiplayer levels are essentially all-range mode maps that are customizable with multiple options. Now, as I mentioned in gameplay, the all-range mode is nothing short of breathtaking. So, romping around in it with your friends earning rewards at every corner is even funner. The only mark that was lost was a slight lack of options in the game style department (there's only a survival, point, or time match mode, while they could have added more). That's about it. Otherwise, have oodles of fun messing around in just about any world there is to offer.

REPLAYABILITY - 9/10
With a Bronze, Silver, and Gold difficulty level on every mission, multiple unlockable awards and many medals to achieve... Assult will have you playing again and again with that familiar addiction that only Star Fox can supply.

FINAL SCORE

7 / 10
10 / 10
8 / 10
8 / 10
9 / 10
+ 9 / 10
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8.5 (Rounded)
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9 / 10

This is a worthy sequal to Star Fox 64. It's something that I reccommend you buy (especially if you're a past Star Fox 64 player), that's definitely worth every penny. They really took the concepts introduced in early Star Fox and ran with them to create this engine that after a LONG time, I've get to start becoming bored of. Whew!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/05