"Incredible fanservice to Star Fox veterans, but might be a bit too shallow for others"

Well over a decade ago, when I was a child in grade school, I would look forward to every Friday afternoon after school. My mother, while out doing her daily errands, would make an extra stop on Fridays to the local video store to rent me a game to play for the weekend. On one of those Fridays back in 1993, I came home to find a peculiar game had been rented for me, a game called “Star Fox.” I had heard of it, of course, but was a bit disappointed. After all, I didn't care for science fiction, and I certainly was not a shooter fan. But I had nothing better to do on those lazy weekends, and my mother had gone out of her way for me, so I played it anyway. Even though I was young, I knew I was playing something special. It was my first experience with a truly 3d game, and something about those un-textured polygons, morphing around like the screen was playing with a set of tanagrams, not to mention the colorful characters and their pleasant chatter, amazed me, securing this game as one of my childhood favorites.

Fast forward thirteen years, and I am in an oddly similar situation. Here I am, a much older, mature, grown up person, and yet I still find myself giddy with anticipation for August 29th, almost as if I was in school again, waiting to get home to play with a new game. The day finally arrives, and I finally get my hands on the newest iteration on a series I have loved for almost two thirds of my life. After a couple of minutes, I realize that this game is seemingly made just for us Star Fox fans. And it's a load of fun, too.

Star Fox: Command follows the continuing adventures of Fox McCloud and his now-defunct mercenary flight squadron. The game starts similar to Adventures, in that time has not been kind to our hero, and the plot begins on a bit of a down note. The overall plot is fairly weak and explained in a couple of short sentences. Apparently, in the period of time since Andross's demise, a race of mutant sea creatures, calling themselves the Anglar Empire, have risen from the depths of Venom's toxic sea, an area thought to be uninhabitable. The Anglars have seized control of the planet, filling the vacuum of power created by the downfall of Andross. Once again, the Lylat system, which seems to be woefully inept at defending itself against full-scale invasions, has fallen under Anglar control in many sectors. The Cornerian Army, which must be pretty used to failure at this point, must again turn to the Star Fox team to deal with the Anglars, since apparently a handful of single-pilot stunt fighters are much more effective at genocide than the military might of an entire planet's fleet of starships.

Regardless of how simplistic and ridiculous the main plot is, it serves its purpose as a thinly-veiled excuse for more arwing-induced violence. Which is a good thing. Rather than focus on this new enemy threat that comes out of nowhere and nobody really cares about, the plot wisely focuses on the characters themselves. All the anthropomorphic pilots we know and love return, this time, with a lot more dialogue and personal interactions that really helps flesh out each individual. This is where the bulk of the game's fun will be derived for Star Fox faithful. Unlike previous games in the series, Fox is the only member remaining in the Star Fox team at the beginning of the game. As you play the game, you make choices, which branch off into different paths, recruit different pilots, offer alternative dialogue options, and most importantly, eventually lead into one of nine possible endings. Not only does this inflate replay value, but gives fans a lot more freedom with selecting who to play as and which characters they would like the story to focus on. For instance, those desiring a more “classic” Star Fox team setup can follow the default path. But for those who want to mix things up, many other options are available, including one storyline branch that grants complete control over team Star Wolf! The end result gives the game a “choose your own adventure” feel, not to mention gives great incentive to play through multiple times, as alternate paths lead to alternate missions as well.

The gameplay itself is both familiar and totally new. Those of us hardcore enough to seek out and find a translated, fan-patched version of the unreleased, yet nearly completed, SNES title Star Fox 2 will be pleased to find that most of the game is based on the wonderful strategy/shooter hybrid presented there. Missions progress in a series of turns, which each character able to move a set distance every turn, very similar to most turn based strategy games. Each turn is divided into three phases, during which the players plot their characters' flight paths, fly along these paths simultaneously with the enemy, and then resolve any combat the ensues from encounters with enemy craft and structures. The combat is resolved in 3d environments reminiscent of the “all range” modes of previous Star Fox titles. Each encounter has certain objectives within it, most of which center around collecting a specified number of “cores”, retrieved from downed enemies. The element of strategy comes from the numerous options the game has to make you lose. In all missions, you must protect your mothership from enemy harm, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that said mothership seems to be made out of paper. If a single enemy or hostile missile reaches the ship, you fail the mission and must restart. Also, if all your characters are shot down, you also lose. But I'm sure you could have figured that part out yourself.

The graphics are very well done, and while not nearly as mind blowing as, say, Metroid Prime: Hunters, they do the job, and do it well. Framerate is incredibly consistent, and only becomes an issue with a very large number of enemies on screen. Even then, slowdown is barely noticeable.

One aspect of the game that has drawn speculation and criticism from people that have read about the game has been the control scheme. Ever since it was learned that there was no button-based flying mechanics and that all ship control was handled via the touch screen, message boards lit up with discontent, and people seemed to be out for blood. Well, I'm here to tell your right now that you can put your pitchforks away, because the game controls just fine. That isn't to say the controls are flawless, but they're a heck of a lot more accurate and responsive than simple digital control. It certainly takes some getting used to, but a couple of minutes in the tutorial and you'll cutting corners like a pro and doing barrel rolls that would make Peppy himself shed a tear. If the touch screen controls suffer from anything, it's the fact that they are based off of the center of the screen, not where you place your stylus on the pad. Unlike games like Metroid, where, similar to a computer mouse, lifting your stylus and placing it back on the screen would use the stylus's new position as the current center, the controls are always based off the touch screen's center. This is a minor gripe and really doesn't effect gameplay too much, but those using the thumb strap mind find it difficult to reach the far edge of the screen.

One definite problem with the touch screen based controls was binding TOO much to the touch screen. When you play the game with one hand on the buttons and one hand on the touch screen, that essentially gives you five face buttons to work with (L and four directional keys for righties, R, X, Y, B, and A for lefties). Rather than using these keys to perform various aerial maneuvers, all five buttons fire your laser. While this is great for psychotic murderers who need constant, quick access to a button that shoots things, your standard gamer finds it a bit awkward. Acceleration and deceleration are done by double tapping the top and bottom screens respectively, loops and U-turns are performed by touching small icons on either side of the touch screen, and barrel rolls are not done by pressing Z or R twice as we'd been told oh-so many times in the past, but instead by rubbing the touch screen back and forth. While barrel rolls seem to work fine, changing speeds is a hassle, mostly when you have to do it in a hurry and you tap just SLIGHTLY below or above the threshold for each move. The icons for the loops and u-turns are also too small, and can be difficult to press when pressured. Another, admittedly small, flaw comes when giving orders during strategy sessions. Paths are chosen by drawing them onto the map on the touch screen, but this presents an issue: No one can draw a straight line. And considering that each turn, you have a limited amount of movement available to you, you want to get as much movement out of your craft as possible, hence, the need to draw a straight line. Often times, you'll find yourself drawing and re-drawing a flight path, trying desperately to get just enough room to make it to a base, cut a corner exactly right, and so forth. A nice feature to add would have been the ability to choose a destination and have the game draw a path there automatically, then let you draw a manual path for when you needed an awkward flight route. However, this is admittedly a minor gripe.

A more major flaw in the game, and one that many Star Fox fans will certainly notice, is with the characters themselves. A major disappointment is the complete lack of voice acting, this being the first Star Fox game since the original not to feature it. While the chattering noises reminiscent of the original SNES game do a decent job, a lack of voice acting in a game so heavily focused on the characters themselves is a definite negative. Another gaping flaw is with the characters themselves. A lot of them just seem… off. This is due partly to what seems to be a rather lack-luster localization job. There are no real grammatical or translation errors, per se, but the dialogue for certain characters just seems to be way off target. For instance, Panther refers to himself only in the third person, a bizarre trait that he seems to have picked up out of nowhere. Wolf O'Donnel's dialogue seems very off as well. His typical cold-hearted, superior chatter is replaced instead with out of place lines such as, “Hey missile! You suck!” While some of the new characters are genuinely interesting, some, such as Slippy's tacked-on girlfriend are just flat out dull, and it's difficult to care about them. This might seem like a minor gripe, but as a huge fan of the Star Fox series, not to mention in a game so heavily based on character interaction, it's a bit of a let down.

All in all, Star Fox: Command is a solid title that should provide plenty of entertainment to veterans and fans of the series. However, since the game is borderline fan-service, it might be difficult to recommend to someone who isn't a dedicated Star Fox fan.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/06, Updated 09/01/06