StarFox: Assault

StarFox: Assault draws heavily on the original StarFox 64, while introducing a completely new tactic: the ability to park your Arwing starfighter and duke it out with the adversary on the ground. The game’s 10 missions each have a unique objective: sometimes you’ll be stuck in the cockpit, others are entirely ground-based, more often you’ll have to cover your assets both on and over the battlefield. Space missions follow SF64‘s style of gameplay very closely; in fact, the scoring system and the way your aircraft handles are actually improvements on the original. You’ve probably heard the most hype, however, about the game’s on-foot missions.

One hang-up I have so far is the game’s ground controls (controls for aircraft are always the same regardless of your control setup). Assault offers three types of control schemes that let you choose your preferred Y-axis orientation (reversed or not reversed). You can’t change control set-ups mid-game, however. For instance, the Dual Stick scheme (which is most natural if you’re a fan of Halo 2 or other FPS titles) works best when you’re on foot, but makes it very difficult to drive and maneuver a tank. In the end, the default Single-Stick control scheme is probably your best choice overall, and I recommend it for first-time Assault players. On a side note, I also bemoan the lack of space-exclusive missions: Namco seems biased towards the on-foot battles and keeps you on the ground.