Customer Reviews

Star Fox Command

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Nintendo DS has enjoyed much success lately. Star Fox Command joins the ranks of being one of Nintendo's better DS games out there. It has a couple of misses, but it excels heavily in the places where it counts. Star Fox Command is a fantastic handheld gaming experience.

The Star Fox team, after defeating Andross, has disbanded. Soon afterwards, a new threat known as the Anglar has emerged. It's up to Fox McCloud to deal with these foes, and there's no way he can go at it alone. When you first go through the game, there's not really a whole lot you can do, and the story doesn't seem very satisfying. In fact, the first time through the game the path you go is completely set for you. The standard storyline is pretty short and easy. The good news is once you complete the standard story you can choose different paths to take, and uncover several different endings in the process. Each character has his/her own storyline. In short, the game will keep you busy for a while.

Star Fox Command definitely sports some fantastic graphics. Perhaps even some of the best the DS has seen. There's no slowdown, and the character models and storyboards are fantastically detailed. It's far superior to Star Fox 64. The graphics are just one of the high points of Star Fox Command.

One of the high points of Star Fox Command is the gameplay. While in the past Star Fox has pretty much been your standard flight/shooter. Before it was to kill everything in sight. Now the gameplay has taken on a more strategic feel. Just about everything you do is done on the touch screen for the game. At first it feels a little strange, but the execution is straight on. You'll have to plot out your ships courses and then fly to them.

This isn't to say you won't be doing any aerial combat. The game has a map mode and a battle mode. When in battle mode it's basically the same as all-range mode on Star Fox 64. This will mostly be used to battle bosses and shoot down enemies. From time to time you'll have to do a "chase" mission. In these mission you'll have to fulfill special tasks, such as shooting down a missile. The only thing the touch screen isn't used for is to shoot. You'll use the face buttons (or directional buttons) for that. Other than that, all your flying mechanics take place on the touch screen.

There are plenty of things to beware in a mission, however. The objective is mainly just to kill all the bad guys, but there are plenty of ways you can lose. If the Great Fox is destroyed, or the time runs out, or you lose all your spare pilots, the game is over. It may seem like a lot at first, but most of the areas to fight your missions in are pretty small, and it's not so hard to deal with everything going on at once. Of all these assets that could cause you to lose a mission, the only one to pay any real attention to is making sure the Great Fox doesn't get destroyed.

Star Fox also has multiplayer. Up to six people can play off of one card. Or you can go online and battle with three other people. Multiplayer drops the strategic ploy, though and instead pits you in aerial combat against your friends (or online opponents). Multiplayer basically consists of you shooting down your opponents and collecting the stars they drop. It's on a time limit, though, so you have to work fast. When the time runs out, the one with the most stars at the end wins. Multiplayer is a blast, but there really should've been a lot more of it to go around. There really aren't enough modes.

There's no voice acting in Star Fox Command. It's mostly the gibberish you heard in the original Star Fox on your SNES. However, the game does allow you to record your voice using the DS's microphone. You can say a few things into your DS microphone and Fox, while in combat, will say these things in your tone of voice. It's really cool, but doesn't really enhance the gameplay any at all. It's just a neat little gimmick.

Star Fox Command is a great game. It has a couple of short-commings, but for the most part, it's a great gaming experience. Star Fox fans should be pleased at the new strategic direction of the game, and the intuitive gameplay.

On the Positive Side

+The game looks absolutely gorgeous
+The strategic gameplay is fairly addictive
+The touch screen controls are great
+Extras after you complete the main storyline
+Different scenarios
+Recording your own voice is pretty cool
+There's Multiplayer

On the Negative side
-The main storyline is rather short
-The game is also rather easy
-Multiplayer is fun, but severely limited
-Even though it's really nice to record your own voice, it's rather sad that the characters don't have real voices, and instead have the same gibberish used in the original Star Fox

Star Fox Command DS brings the fun space combat world of Star Fox to your DS handheld. It's actually quite fun, strategizing your order of attack and spinning into action!

Your favorite characters of Star Fox are in trouble, and need to a series of enemies. First, you get the overall top-down map screen. Each character's ship can fly a certain amount of distance in a turn - simply draw a line to say where they go. Use the stylus to wipe out some of the 'fog of war', and your main ship can shoot missiles. You only have a certain number of turns available, so plan your movements wisely.

When your ship encounters an enemy ship, you switch into real time combat. In this mode, you drag your stylus around on the bottom screen to "steer" while the top screen shows you where you're flying. You fly through rings to get power-ups, and shoot at enemies (with the D-pad on the left) to fire. It really is quite intuitive - no up/down, left/right issues. Simply drag your stylus as the ship flies. You spin your stylus in a circle to do the classic barrel roll, and there are two easy-access spots to tap to do a U-turn or a loop.

I love space combat, and it was really fun to have this type of game available on a handheld. I kept expecting to put the game down after a mission - but I'd say "just one more ..." and keep going. Note that these missions aren't easy! Expect to have to replay some of them several times to get through. You do have to learn the strategies and tactics of three dimensional combat.

The game expects you to go through a single pass rather quickly - but the beauty is that you then go back and re-play it, now having new options available at every stage. Instead of just contacting Slippy, now you have other choices you can do instead that are more difficult. You choose at each step what to do, and it affects the types of missions you take on and the endings you get to see. Think of it as built in difficulty levels.

A key element of space combat games are the visuals - with you trying to move and think real time in three dimensions, it's critical that you can see the terrain, your enemies, and anything else that might get in the way. While the DS graphics in general are nice, it wasn't always easy to see what you were fighting. The graphics were sometimes unclear - the ship's faded graphic would blend right in to the background's faded graphic.

Also, your ship is right in the center of the screen, and takes up a fair amount of it. This makes it challenging if you're right behind a ship, to see it. Surely they could have given you an in-cockpit view or at least a transparent ship.

For vocals, they give you the high pitched gibberish that means it's perfect for all languages. No need to do new vocal tracks for this game! Still, in modern times, it would be nice to have a regular vocal track available. It adds a whole additional dimension of enjoyment when you have great voice actors bringing life to the characters.

Still, this is a superb game for the DS, and one I really enjoy. Well recommended!

I purchased this game for my [...] son for our China trip. He started to play the game as soon as it arrived - 2 days before our trip. I was worried about him getting bored of the game during the trip. To my surprise, he had been playing the game during the entire 3 weeks. He was fascinated by it and told me that this was the best game I've ever bought for him!

I just thought there might be one big concern (and a few small ones) for almost EVERYONE who was considering buying this game - the touch screen, and how it's used to control nearly every single aspect of the game. Here's the mindset you need: It's gonna be really hard to pull off a really sweet portable flying game. So you get used to the controls, 'cos once you do, you're gonna have a totally awesome flying game in your pocket. And it's not that hard. You get it, and it's worth it - even becomes nearly intuitive.

Graphics - FANTASTIC! IGN and Amazon have some lo-res shots that really didn't convey how beautiful this game is - in fact, in the online screens, the game kinda looks straight-up BAD. Don't be fooled - it's gorgeous.

The story and dialogue - the voice acting, or lack thereof replaced by tweetering and twittering, SUCKS. The dialogue ITSELF, though, is pretty cool - the characters are way more fleshed out than they ever were in the N64 StarFox - Fox's history with Krystal, Flaco's independance and refusal to admit to softer emotions and feelings (that in the N64 game was just a blustery façade), Slippy's insecurity (which was just idiocy in the N64 game), and the dialogue from Star Wolf - it's all way better.

"I hate that frog..."

Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but I couldn't get into the control scheme. I found it frustrating and painful. That aside the actual missions that I played - though I admit I gave the game away before I got very far - were pretty boring. Fly around in an open environment (pretty much 100% open, no nothing) and shoot 2-6 droids.

I suggest playing the game yourself before buying - you really need to know what you're getting into.

One of Nintendo's lesser known, but nonetheless fun, franchises has now hit the DS too. Star Fox Command returns the series to it's dog-fighting, space shooting roots that made the series such a hit on the Super NES and N64 years ago, by ditching out of the ship platforming and rail based missions in favor of some pretty wide open environments and some innovative features using the touch screen to help pilot your ship. The graphics are some of the best to be seen on the DS so far, despite some polygonal break up here and there, visually the game still packs a punch. The touch screen features are also some of the best of any game to take advantage of on the DS, and the multiple strategic options and braching storylines help make Star Fox Command a winner. The only real drawbacks of Star Fox Command is that it's ultimately too short and may be too easy for some, but the multiplayer modes are fun enough (only needing one DS card to play with others is always something to be happy about), and the WiFi capabilities are a nice touch as well. All in all, while it's not perfect, Star Fox Command is yet another great, first party DS game that further helps sell the dual screened hand held as the best portable system on the market today.

I've always felt that Nintendo treated its Starfox franchise like a lab rat. Even the original, which was released on the Super Nintendo, used the FX Chip, a new 3D technology. Starfox 64, what I consider the pinnacle of the series, was the first major release to use rumble technology and launched bundled with Nintendo's N64 Rumble Pack. Starfox Adventures took things to the ground and ultimately failed as a boring, fetch quest marathon. Starfox Command, the series' first handheld debut, puts Starfox back where he belongs: in the sky. But it does so in a strange, DS-appropriate way that isn't quite great but it also isn't bad, either.

Consider this experiment a success, because it shows that the Nintendo DS can handle a flight action game very well. Starfox Command utilizes only the Nintendo DS touch screen and the L Trigger (or R Trigger, for left-handed players) and it does so very well. Using the touch screen, players control their pitch and yaw, steering the Arwing with precision. Making a frantic scratching motion sends the Arwing into its classic laser-deflecting barrel roll, and there are buttons found on the touch screen to pull off other maneuvers like flips. The L/R Trigger is the only non-touch-based control button, and it allows you to shoot your lasers. Any other button allows you to shoot as well, but the L/R Triggers are definitely the most intuitive.

The touch screen mechanics don't end there. Q-Games had to implement something new into their game to set Starfox Command apart from other Starfox games, so they made the game's battles spread out into a turn-based strategy mechanic. Each mission will throw you out onto a battlefield diagram where you'll direct your Starfox team around the map, engaging in conflict with enemy ships and taking over bases. The goal in every mission is to keep the big, defenseless Great Fox afloat while destroying all of the bad guys and stopping their missiles from reaching Great Fox. On the diagram you can fly over power-ups that give the Great Fox a little defense of its own, as well as power-ups that give you more time on the master clock for each mission. That's right, each mission has a time restraint. What a bummer.

The conflicts (or more appropriately, scuffles) that you'll engage in are over far too quickly, and that's unfortunate because they're where the old-school Starfox charm is delivered. I've actually completed some of these little battles in mere seconds. Sometimes you're asked to take out several different units, and sometimes they appear right in front of you, making it all too easy. Now, near the end of the storyline, I started engaging in much more difficult battles-some that, admittedly, had me frustrated and wondering what to do-but most of the game I plowed through untouched.

The game's over pretty quickly, but Starfox Command offers branching paths and multiple endings, and is also one of the many games these days that takes advantage of the DS's WiFi capabilities. With a trusty wireless Internet connection, players can connect and duke it out in the Corneria skies any time of the day. The wireless battles are fun and entertaining as you'd expect them to be, after all, they're Starfox flight battles. What more could you ask for?

Visually, Starfox Command is a standout as one of the more impressive DS games that runs on a 3D engine. The frame rate is almost always smooth, though it admittedly does slip up from time to time. There is a considerable amount of things moving around at all times and despite some fog issues, Starfox Command looks fantastic. It also sounds pretty good, and the standard Starfox gibberish is a nice addition-especially when you record your own voice to use in the cut-scenes!

Overall, Starfox Command is a pretty successful lab rat. The gameplay holds up pretty well but it has the same old Starfox problem; the thrills are over far too quickly and far too easily. The visuals run smoothly and the presentation isn't bad. The online multiplayer is quite a service for Starfox fans who want to take on the world with their skills. Starfox makes a decent handheld landing, albeit with a few holes in its wings-it's not perfect, but it'll entertain fans of the series regardless.

(This review written by captain anonymous, whom sometimes buys things with this account.)

Star Fox Command, which involves far less strategy and far more shooting than the name implies, is designed to introduce new concepts (or are they?*) into a much beloved series while still retaining the appeal of its predecessors. The result is unlike any other game I have encountered to date, and an overall good game, but there are a few things that keep it from being a great game.

The back story has Team Star Fox in dire straits some time after the previous game. The short version goes like this: the stubborn team leader Fox decides life as mercenary is too dangerous for his love interest, the spunky and alluring Krystal, who disagrees and refuses to leave. Fox becomes frustrated and fires her, alienating her from the team. Without a fourth member, the team falls apart as Slippy the insufferable engineer becomes engaged and leaves to get married, the amusingly arrogant Falco becomes bored with the lack of combat and leaves, and the newly mustachio Peppy , Fox's mentor, leaves to accept an officer's position in the military. When a new threat arises, Fox finds himself facing one of the galaxy's most nefarious foes alone.

One of the game's high points is the ability to play as 13 different characters, each with their own custom ship with a different balance of weapons, agility, and shields. Over the course of the story, you can play as all of Team Star Fox, the three remaining members of Team Star Wolf, as well as Fox's friend Bill, Falco's ex Katt, Slippy's girl friend Amanda, Peppy's daughter Lucy, Andross's grandson Dash, and one more who makes his usual appearance on Venom.

The branching storyline is handled in an entirely unique way, and is one of the game's best points. Most games a feature a long story line that sums up the whole plot with one or two extra endings to give a feeling of choice. Star Fox Command features a short campaign with 9 different story paths, each one taking you through different events taking place over the same time period. Early endings usually leave you with more questions than answers and end badly for the main characters. As you work your way further in, the team become more involved in the key moments of the story and the game ends on a high note. If it doesn't make any sense if you only play it once, it's not supposed to, so if you have a short attention span, you won't get very much satisfaction out of it.

The general progression of game play is this: in one corner of the map your characters, along with the (redesigned) Great Fox, and on the rest of the map are a series of enemy squads, missile pads, and bases. Each turn, you plot a flight path for each of your fighters, and then move at the same time as the enemy units move towards the Great Fox (you lose if they get there). Your fighters will attack missiles or bases if they reach them, enemies will attack your ships if they touch the ships or their flight paths. If this happens, combat begins on a map determined by where the contact occurred.

Combat in Star Fox Command is basically the all range mode from Star Fox 64. The object is to destroy the enemy squad and collect their power cores while avoiding or destroying that map's unique fortifications. If you are liberating a base, you also have to fly through a series of hoops to ram the mother ship attacking it after the battle. Some of the bases shoot missiles which must be shot down while flying through a series of hoops behind them. The game is over when you have saved all the bases and defeated the boss (there really aren't enough of them in the game), if there is one. All this must be done while conforming to a time/fuel limit shared between all your craft, which can be increased via pickups or by deflecting enemy attacks with barrel rolls. It's quite a change from the usual Star Fox routine. However...

*the night before I wrote this review I happen to notice an article about the canceled Star Fox Two for the NES and read it. I noticed the game play centered around using each member of the Star Fox Team and their unique fighters around liberating planets from Andross`s clutches while intercepting enemies and missiles trying to attack Cornaria in real time and destroying them in all range mode. When interviewed about Star Fox 64, the a member of the project team said 60% of its content came from the original, 10% was all new, and 30% (yes, that's 110%) came from Star Fox Two. Perhaps the other 70% percent of the Star Fox Two content went...

While the new ships, the branching story line, variable endings, and strategic elements are all great new additions to the game, the new control system is far less responsive than the original one and rather frustrating at times. This, combined with the new time limit, means enemies had to be made easier and less complex than they otherwise could have. In the difficult parts of the game (and there aren't many) you're fighting the clock, or the map, not the enemies. There were also a few cut corners in the writing department. These range from irritating plot errors (Leon was mistakenly turned from a sophisticate egomaniac into a twitchy sadistic lunatic) to amusing out of character remarks (Panther: "This is absurd, Krystal! Tell Fox where to stick his Arwing and let's get out of here!"). All this doesn't ruin the game, it can still be quite fun and addictive to play, it's still a good addition to the series, it's still a good buy (especially for how cheap the site's vendors are selling it for), it just could have been better with a little more effort. If you're a devoted Star Fox Fan, you already know what to do. If you're a more casual fan, buy it, or try it, it's a pretty good game even for its flaws.

The first time I heard about this game, my mind drifted back to the one time that I'd played starfox before. It was on the N64, when I spent a single evening at a friend's house getting killed in multiplayer. That evening is still firmly engraved in my mind. When I finally decided to buy Starfox Command, I had had little enough experience in Starfox gameplay, but I also had doubts as to whether stylus controls would work well for flying.
Both of these possible problems quickly disappeared. Three minutes into the tutorials, I was already comfortable with the controls (and my flying abilities had greatly improved since the days of the Nintendo 64). I was prepared to take a stylus-jab at single player.
Most of the game's new quirks I appreciated quite a bit. I enjoyed controlling my fighters to attack enemy squadrons via the map view, and the turn limit was just enough to keep me moving forward through the missions. Battles are fast-paced and action-based, and when you succeed at deflecting and dodging all of the various projectiles flying at you, you feel like a lot better pilot than you really are.
The most exhilarating part of single-player to me was the missile-chasing. Functioning as the poor man's missile defense, your fighter keeps going faster and faster, flying through hoops after the missile until you either miss a beacon or you destroy the missile. What makes it even more nerve-racking is if the missile will reach the Great Fox(your mothership) on the following turn, ending the mission if it survives your attack!
At the end of the game's main story, you recieve a key that allows you to choose different actions for the characters in the game on your next play-through, eventually leading up to one of the other eight endings.These branching plots add a lot of gameplay, and I often found myself anxious to finish a mission so I could see what would happen next in my chosen storyline.
The wi-fi mode is slightly more robust than previous wifi DS games, and I was happy to see the huge 26-letter ranking system come into play (the alphabet, if you hadn't already figured that out). Nintendo has also made another attempt to curb disconnecting; the system counts the number of times you've cut connection and attempts to pair you to others who have similar numbers of disconnects. With luck, it will prove effective over the far more disconnect-forgiving methods used in past games.
Multi-player still has some problems, unfortunately. The lack of computer opponents in multi-player handicaps the fun of the offline experience, especially once you finish Story Mode. In addition, it would've been cool if you could pick from the numerous single-player ships in multi-player sessions; alas, you can only use one (rather generic) vessel. Nevertheless, the game quite effectively brings the age-old and brand-new Starfox gameplay together to the DS.

Starfox is a great game, although it has its clear hits and subtle misses. For instance the game play is amazingly fun, escpecially when you add in wi-fi play and play against 3 others blasting away til the time runs out. The story is a good one, as fits standard to the starfox chain. The only miss i see in this game is not even a true complete miss,. Although the stylus control is great and works seamlessly, it seems a bit odd to force a player to use only the stylus, specifically after being used to button mashing and blasting...we all know there are many that want some button presses in there at some point...i really thing they should have given the option to use the d-pad for maneuverability..that and i think its about time to put some true voice overs for the voices of the characters, but other than that.. a truly strong game..and a must have if you own a DS