Star Fox Assault for Gamecube Review by ProReviewer at nGaming

'I really think StarFox Ass-ed this one up'

We complained about Rare's game, and yet we loved it at the same time. It wasn't really all that Starfox, but gorgeous visuals, stunning music and a heart-warming story made it acceptable. Plus cleverly integrated arwing missions. Rareware managed to barely keep the StarFox universe in tact, while creating a new game in the process. Now to describe how the 'true' sequel pales miserably without using swear words...

I love to bring out the positives in things. Indeed, there's plenty in this game that will have die-hards screaming with joy. However, die-hards can kiss their dreams good bye as Namco have decided to try and do things that Rareware did, and they did a crappy job with it.

Now, we've been anticipating this game for a long time. Ever since it was revealed at E3 two years ago, we new that a new shoot-em up was coming. Although it looked like an N64 game that had been rushed through a blending machine, we were still excited (sort of). After playing this, I actually wished Nintendo wasted money buying rights to SF Adventures characters, that way, I wouldn't have so much to compare to it's superior predecessor. I know a lot of people disagree with this, but Namco has rushed this game and tried to make it as similar as StarFox Adventures, while being the same as Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64). That lethal combination drove their attention away from other things - things that have been famous to the StarFox world, for the last 13 years.

On the back of the Adventures cover, it said 'out of the cockpit'. Well now, we're shoving fox back into the cockpit for a full shooting adventure. Shooting around in your high-paced arwing. Smashing other ships to kingdom come. The story takes place after Adventures when some crappy relative of Andross who suddenly appeared out of nowhere decides to start blowing up the Lylat system. Needless to say, it's up to StarFox and his gang to save the day. There are four playable characters, each with his or hers special abilities. There's fox, the average kinda fella. Slippy who's as crap as ever. Krystal, who's not so revealing this time round and of course, Falco, a hot-headed, bird guy with good arwing skills. What about Peppy and ROB, they're in the Great Fox, feeding out unhelpful hints.

In story mode, you play the on-rails levels that made Lylat Wars so fun. Air battles, shooting and destroying large waves of enemies. All the old moves are back which will be a pleasure to everyone. Lasers, Nova-bombs, Rings, everything is there. Even Wolf O'Donnel makes a return, with Leom and some crappy Namco character. Most of the time though, you'll be on the ground controlling the landmaster tank and shooting people. This will feel weird after playing Adventures, but you'll get used to it. Krystal isn't suited to shooting, they should have given her the staff back, but it doesn’t matter. The ground levels are amazing at times and other really good shoot-em up gameplay. But if you like loads of strategy in your gameplay, then get ready to endure extremely simplistic missions which don't challenge most players at all.

So, everything seems perfect. Now let's look at all the faults of StarFox's latest adventure. Number one, 10 missions. 10 missions, of which there are ZERO alternative routes. Just linear, totally controlled motion. Everytime you play it, there will be NO variation. Where the hell did the map screen go. EVERY single StarFox game had a map screen, even Rareware's unique game had a map screen. That's just sloppy and lazy. No respect at all. I've noticed that Bill and a couple of other characters have strangely disappeared. Either they died in a ship crash, and hadn't shot enough enemies, or Namco decided they'd create extremely ropy characters to replace them. What happened to Andrew (Andross's nephew), shouldn't HE have taken control of the army instead of Oinkonno (or whatever)? Namco proves to be good at some times, and utterly crap at others. Also, controls. Arwing controls are perfect. Land controls are extremely fiddly and it feels like all the controls have been assigned to the wrong buttons. It's like playing a platformer where you use B to go left, L to go right and R to jump. Utterly confusing.

Now that I've complained continuously about the quality of the single player mode, let me complain about the multiplayer. To be honest, the multiplayer is very well executed. You can use all the stuff from the main-game, no slow-down or graphic quality decrease and plenty of levels. It's always been satisfying to watch your opponents crumble under you might. But doing it in an arwing is even more fun. Apart from the fact that it's a thousand times less repetitive, the multiplayer carries all the pros and cons of the single player. Nice arwing mode, terrible land controls.

The graphics are probably what distinguish this from its predecessor. In space, the graphics are amazing. Loads of polygons flashing on the screen and beautiful arwing graphics. Unfortunately, the land graphics and character models are so bad, they have to resort to cut-scenes. Remember in Adventures, every cut-scene was in real-time. The graphics were THAT good. The land textures absolutely PALE, in comparison to Adventures. They are bad, worse than bad. They are terrible. The worst textures on the Gamecube so far. Remember the beautiful water effects in Star Fox Adventures, they have been replaced by what looks like blue toilet paper. The lovely small effects are gone. Everything, every level looks so rushed. In fact, we've drawn up a conversion table to prove how bad they are:

Effect	Star Fox Adventures	Star Fox Assault
Water	Gleaming, reflections	For the bin, unreflective
Grass	Nice texture	Compost heap
Arwing	Nicely painted, very detailed	Fairly plain, nice immerseful backgrounds

The character models are clearly not up to standard. Remember the hairs on StarFox and Krystal. That has been replaced by one huge block. The animation is stiff, and any little details are gone. Lazy, one-colour outfits and useless expressions make up this game. Music is somewhat decent though, however, they come coupled with horrendous voice-overs. Clearly light-years away from the emotion exerted in StarFox Adventures, 'characters' are little more than 'polygons who make sounds'. They have no personality. No emotion at all. Attack. Do This. Generic. Blah Blah. Puns as funny as a monkey's ass and jokes that are less entertaining then an old-lady walking across a street.

This is not a sequel. It's a turn for the worst. While it may have the arwing missions that Adventures lacked, it doesn’t do anything to impress me. I'm going to stick to Lylat Wars and Adventures. That way I can get DECENT arwing and ground play.

Best Bit:
Killing all your mates in the addictive multiplayer. The best mode in the game, this makes story - mode cry out and wish it was as good. Your quite unlucky if you don't have someone to play with.

Worst Bit:
Switching it on and discovering what's missing. This game is looking at the same dispute Adventures got. It is well too different and tries to mix ideas from Adventures into it. Give it up Namco, Adventures will never be a 'real' StarFox game, so stop throwing in all these half-assed attempts.

Graphics 73% 'Unimpressive'
With StarFox Adventures being one of the best looking games on 'cube, this game had a lot to live up to. As expected, it didn't love up to it and ended up looking like manure in comparison. Nice space levels, horrible land levels. Nice vehicles, crappy character models.

Sound/Music 80% 'Good, but emotionless'
Decent music, that suits the atmosphere Assault creates. Unfortunately, repetitive voice-overs ruin the fun. The voices are very expressionless considering Adventures, Fox is no longer sarcastic. Krystal, is someone with no purpose what so ever. The rest of them are just aimless with rubbishy jokes.

Gameplay 82% 'Acceptable'
Decent arwing missions, epic boss battles and a fantastic multiplayer are good. No map screen, awkward land controls and some mediocre shooting sections are not good. It depends on what overpowers you.

Value 69% 'Not long'
Story mode never changes. Difficulty settings don't do much and it gets repetitive too quickly. Short is what most StarFox games are. Lylat Wars was over quickly, Adventures ended quickly. It may have a multiplayer and 30 S-flags, but that's not enough to justify its length by my high standards.

Overall Score: 76%.

Verdict:
It may not of had the gameplay, but Adventures set the graphical, musical and character standards for the 'Cube era. Assault hasn't lived up to these standards and that is going to cause real controversy between Assault fans and Adventure fans.

What the game lacks:
Real ground missions. They may be more active then Adventures, but with lazy backgrounds and repetitive targets, it's easy to get bored quickly.

What could have made it better:
Actually being developed by Nintendo, how lazy can they be not to develop their OWN franchise. When a game is developed by Nintendo, it is said to have 'Nintendo Magic' in it. This game isn't developed by Nintendo, so maybe that's why it's so sparse.

What it is:
- Not bad.
- Not good.
- Not acceptable.

What it isn't:
- Adventures.
- StarFox 64.
- Long.

Star Fox Assault Review