"Slightly disappointing, but very easy to warm up to"

Summary:
Star Fox Assault is an action game that continues the story of Fox McCloud and his band of companions as they fight to defend the Lylat System. Past games in the series have ranged from phenomenal flight combat (Star Fox 64) to disappointing on-foot fetch quests (Star Fox Adventures). This game tries to bring the series back to its flying roots while incorporating some original and fun, yet flawed, on-foot segments.

Graphics:
The graphics are very well done, overall. During the game, animation is very smooth. Colors are bright and varied and the textures are pretty. All of the levels look different and are easily distinguishable. The game has no problems throwing a ton of enemies at you at one time with no slowdown. The graphics are nothing that will blow you away, but they are quite good and definitely above average. The cut scenes are well done also, although some of the character models look a bit strange from up close. The animation is very realistic, though. Unfortunately, the graphics could be better in multi-player. Opposing characters appear very small on the screen, and the graphics are a bit fuzzy.
Rating: B+

Music:
The music is serviceable. Stage music is nothing special for the most part, but not annoying either. Some of the boss music is very well done, but to counter that the main menu music is horrible. Multi-player music is mixed, sometimes offering something quite appropriate and sometimes offering something bland and dull.
Rating: B-

Sound:
The sound is very good. All of the sound effects, such as lasers, ships engines, and explosions, fit perfectly with the actions on the screen and are never too loud to be distracting. The voice acting is mixed. It is usually quite good (although not amazing) but occasionally a line or two will be delivered flat-out awkwardly. Some characters are better then others, with Krystal being particularly poor.
Rating: B+

Story:
The story is actually quite original for a Star Fox game, but quite unoriginal for an entry into the sci-fi universe. However, even Star Fox 64 had numerous rip offs of other things within the sci-fi genre (Independence Day, Star Wars). Still Star Fox Assault's plot moves along at a quick pace. There are a few plot holes and the ending leaves you a bit unsatisfied, but overall I was pleased with the direction of the story.
Rating: A-

Controls:
The controls in this game range from almost perfect, such as in the Arwing, to very frustrating (most of the tank controls). You get three control schemes to choose from for tank and pilot missions, and all have their strengths and weaknesses. The default is a Metroid Prime control scheme, and it works fairly well but often leaves you vulnerable to attacks from above or below. The dual stick scheme (similar to Halo) is good for advanced players, but takes some getting used to while in the tank. The third control scheme, pulled out of Star Fox 64's multi-player, is a nice mix for both tank and person, but can make your finger sore since you have to hold down the R Button to run. As mentioned, the Arwing controls are almost flawless, except I don't like how they made barrel rolls for both directions into one button (L) instead of two (L and R). This sounds minor, but it just isn't as intuitive to have it as two buttons instead of one.
Rating: B+

Depth / Scope:
This game appears incredibly shallow on the surface, but further investigation reveals a surprisingly deep game. While there are only 10 single player missions, they can all be played in a variety of ways using lots of different weapons and strategies. Want to charge into the enemy swarm with a machine gun? How about staying back and sniping the enemy? Or perhaps you'd like a subtler route, with stealth and grenades? You can do all of those. Most missions involve you switching between different vehicles to accomplish different tasks, and that adds a nice variety. There are also three different skill levels to choose from. I would've liked a longer game, though, because just when the game feels like it's really getting started, you get to the last mission and the story draws to a close. There aren't nearly enough “flying-on-rails” missions either, as those missions are by far the most fun in the game.
Multi-player is also deceptively deep. Once you start to unlock all of the good options (which unfortunately requires you to play a LOT of matches with the bad options) things can get quite fun. The game throws in jet packs, one-hit kills, player controlled missiles (also known as fly-by-wire rockets), and lots of other unexpected surprises to unlock. Things can get very frantic if you set it up right. Unfortunately, the game is missing a lot, too. Why are there no bots to play against? More importantly, why can't we combine options (for example, combining one-hit-kills with jet pack mode)? What about an option to turn certain weapons on and off for the level? A lot of these would've been easy to add but are missing from the game.
Rating: B

Overall Game Play:
Overall, the game is very fun, at least while it lasts. It is about 5 or so missions too short. However, there are three different skill levels to test your skills on. The game starts off fairly easy but actually gets quite difficult on the last 3 or 4 missions, even on the easy skill level. The different styles of play flow together very nicely. It is an easy adjustment to switch from tank to plane to person and back again. There are no noticeable bugs in the game, and the load times are very short (although long for a Gamecube game). There are a few game play elements within multi-player that are troublesome, though. For example, when you get a kill, a giant banner takes up half of your screen notifying you of the kill. It is distracting, covers up the radar, and is far too large. Speaking of the radar, it is fairly useless, as all opponents are shown to be at the same distance from you until they are right on top of you. These features are minor gripes, though, and you get used to them eventually.
Rating: B+

Replay:
Replay is fairly limited in the single-player game. While they give you multiple skill levels, point goals to meet, and hidden flags to find on each stage, they give you little motivation to meet those goals, as you don't unlock very much that way. Moreover, some of the missions are not very much fun a second, third, and especially tenth time around. Multi-player is where this game's replay bread and butter lies, though. When you get four friends together in a room, hours can go by at the drop of a hat. With all of the options to choose from (despite the complaints I mentioned above) thing stay fresh for some time. And that's good, because the only way to unlock most of the features is to play match after match of multi-player mode. Just like with Super Smash Brothers Melee, this game keeps track of lots of useless statistics about who killed who and with what weapons, and it's a very nice touch.
Rating: A-

Tilt:
While parts of the single player game leave a bit to be desired, some of the stages are insanely fun and bring back a lot of nostalgia for the incredible Star Fox 64. In addition, multi-player is a blast. Even though there are some gripes with this game, none of them were large enough to keep me from having a great time playing it.
Rating: 13 / 16

Score Calculation:
Each letter grade is translated into a point value. F gets a 0, D- gets a 1, up to A+, which gets a 12. These are totaled with the Tilt value to get a total score out of 100. The total is then divided by 10 and rounded to the nearest value (5 rounds up).

Total score: 9+7+9+10+9+8+9+10+13 = 84 / 100 = 8 / 10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/05, Updated 03/30/05