Star Fox Assault

aka: Star Fox Armada
Moby ID: 17644
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Description official descriptions

The Lylat System has been at peace for several years after the mysterious disaster was averted on Dinosaur Planet. But, alas, Andrew Oikonny, who has been kicked out of Star Wolf, seems to have taken over Andross's army, and to make things even trickier, strange insect-like creatures called Aparoids have started to appear all around and destroy and assimilate objects.

Star Fox Assault marks a return to the space and air combat in the spirit of the original Star Fox and Star Fox 64 games. In addition to this, Fox and friends get to fight on foot, using various different kinds of weapons, and the Landmaster tank. The game includes a 10-mission campaign as well as a rather varied multiplayer mode.

Spellings

  • スターフォックスアサルト - Japanese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (GameCube version)

164 People (131 developers, 33 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 70% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 28 ratings with 5 reviews)

The Rape Of The Starfox Series

The Good
StarFox is one of most beloved of all the Nintendo franchises. The SNES and N64 versions of the game were amazing the Gamecube one sadly sucks.

The plot is typical of StarFox only more moronic. I won’t get into it here.

The Graphics are good. Hell they are amazing. Easily one of the games best features. Alas graphics do not make the game. This game really shows the power of the Gamecube. The multiplayer is fun. There are many different modes of play all of which are fun to play. If you have friends and multiple controllers, sadly there is no online component. If only the rest of the game was as well done as the multiplayer.



The Bad
The Gameplay is horrible. There are three types. Rail line shooting, in an Arwing. Free form shooting in an Arwing, and segments in which Fox goes on foot. The only one of these segments that is well done is the free fly ship mode. The rail line segments are lame, and the on foot missions are almost impossible. The controls are shit. And the objectives are often unclear. There are also regenerating bad guys. Why Nintendo?

The voice acting is horrendous. And the music and sound effects leave too much to be desired.

The Bottom Line
Overall I can not recommend this game. If you must have a Star Fox game get, StarFox Adventures. Or get this game cheap and just play the multiplayer. Why did Nintendo let Namco make this game? Namco can not even make there own games well. Shame on you Nintendo.

GameCube · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006

Ok shoot 'em up

The Good
Very high production values and good to great cgi/graphics, which are great for such a button masher of a game. It is fun to "run and gun" in this game, and the weapons available are cool, the AI is fairly difficult, especially as you get deeper into the game.
There are lots of bonus items, i.e. Health, bombs, guns etc. so you don't have to waste too much time looking for anything you need.
Lots of crazy action, colour, chaos and fun.

The Bad
It's not a continuation of Star Fox: Adventures. I have to admit that the only other Star Fox game I played before this one was Star Fox: Adventures, which was a great game with lots of worlds and very open. I do understand that this one is more like the original concept so I am sure the fans of the original games will be happy. For what it is it is a fine and fun game, but it does suffer from repetition and mild boredom as the levels are really only giant shoot outs, with no real tactics, puzzles challenge other than to be the last one standing. The game also pulls you along at IT'S pace, not yours. You can not deviate and explore on the ground outside of the task set out for you. Some of the scenarios are so "busy" with enemies you really can't enjoy any of the surroundings. It plays like: 1...2...3....GO! and start shooting and don't stop till you win or you lose. There isn't any stealth involved whatsoever and the run and gun eventually gets a bit tedious. You play so fast you can't help but get the feeling you missed out on something, maybe there was something I missed? A really good weapon, perhaps? An upgrade for the ship maybe? This is also the problem with the space battles, to much on the screen and no chance to explore. Run and Gun.....yawn Because you are rushed to do the tasks in the allotted time, you also find you don't know were to go because you aren't given a chance to explore properly and finish the tasks by trial and error (and lots of lives!). It took me about 10 tries to realize that I am required to ENTER the buildings, and also to find the ELEVATORS which do not look like anything more than openings. It only adds to the boredom factor and is mildly frustrating.
The targeting is hard as you need to push 2 buttons and your toggle to aim, and it is 3/4 3rd person but turning Fox is a real chore. It's like steering a car on any racing game. You can't turn real sharp with Fox and you kind of have to back up and turn him around. You must get behind him to move forward. This is mildly irritating at first but you will get the hang of it, but it is challenging when running along narrow ledges, and you will fall off a lot! This is made worse when you fall from way up high and it was a very hard climb and you must now start all over again! Bottom line though, is that it is too rigid and confining, with limited story and depth.

The Bottom Line
A very well done shoot em up, but not very deep. The story has enough to set the stage for the battle. It is a pretty shoot em up with good production value. A fun time waster. No blood or gore so OK with the younger players, but very busy and complicated tasks/buildings etc. so maybe 10 and up?
Because of the 3 level difficulty settings it has lots of replay value, and is fun in a "best my score" way.
Fun in it's way, but forgettable.

GameCube · by Oblio (97) · 2006

An excellent game, but why is it over already?

The Good
In general, the concept and most of the execution are excellent. I like the idea of foot combat and the developers did a decent job here.

The plot was decent, the characters were interesting (though the voice acting was a little bit off). I particularly liked the Star Wolf team.

The graphics and music are very good, and look and sound nice. The graphics are excellent. The music is not exactly memorable stuff by all means, but it's pleasing enough and fits the situations well enough, and fits the general style of the series.

The Bad
The number one problem with the game is, pretty obviously, that there's only 10 single-player missions. Another problem is that they're pretty disproportional: Most are foot combat, and there's not enough of the famous Star Fox roller coaster ride style space shooting.

The foot combat works for the most part, but the makers should have put a bunch of additional effort to that; right now, it's just good, it could have been excellent. The Landmaster tank in particular is very aggravating thing to control: slow to get moving and impossible to aim with.

Time limits that crop up in some missions are also pretty annoying. The action is extremely hectic as it is, and adding additional hurries on top of that is a bit much. You only start to live with the time limits on later times when you play through the game, and, well, people don't play games too many times through these days, do they...

One small problem is that the plot doesn't really take full advantage of the characters and the potential; okay, in the end it doesn't really matter if the game where you blow tons of stuff up has a plot or not, but it seems to me that they developed some great potential but didn't use it all.

The Bottom Line
Star Fox Assault is a game of good old-fashioned space shooting and space fighter combat, but also a game of foot combat, with interesting twist that in some missions, you can pick your vehicle freely. The environments include familiar Star Fox locales and some new ones.

The concept works well enough. In free-form missions, fox can run around at staggering speed and even more staggeringly hypnotic tail-wagging. There's tons of enemies, tons of weapons strewn around the levels, tons of Stuff to Blow Up. Never in the series we've seen this much of senseless cartoon violence. It's kind of fun once you ignore slight frustration on the first time around. Regrettably, it never rises above the "kind of fun" afterwards... but it's "kind of fun" enough that I won't drag this game to the second-hand store.

Overall, the game works pretty well, looks and sounds pretty well; certainly, not the worst game imaginable. Not just exactly as smoothly playable as the previous parts, but it makes it up with the hectic pace. Okay, the previous parts of the series didn't exactly make you think; this game doesn't give you enough time to think at all, which is another kind of fine numb feeling.

The only big problem is that the single player game is stunningly short. The multiplayer game is fun, but does not feel like something you can play for too long at time. Perhaps with, say, twice the missions and a little bit more varied multiplayer mode this might have been a really great game, but right now, it's just something you pull off the shelf to play occasionally. Still, a very much decent game and doesn't ruin the rest of the series.

GameCube · by WWWWolf (444) · 2007

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

References

The Aparoids may be based on either the Borg from Star Trek, or the Phalanx from Marvel Comics, as they are both techno-organic alien races bent on the assimilation of all organic life.

Unlockable game

The US release of the game includes a playable version of Xevious to unlock.

Information also contributed by Mark Ennis.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by WWWWolf.

Additional contributors: Alaka, gamewarrior.

Game added May 8, 2005. Last modified June 18, 2023.