Touch the Stars: Star Fox Command Review

'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky

Back in 1993, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make Star Wars. Not an epic space opera per se but a game that replicated the furious, desperate space dogfights made famous by George Lucas in the 1970s. He got his chance in 1993 after Argonaut created the polygon rendering Super FX chip for the Super Nintendo and Star Fox was born. An on-rails shooter that boasted truly impressive polygonal graphics at the time, Star Fox was simple, addictive, and fun, everything a great Nintendo game should be. Over the past thirteen years though, Fox McCloud and team Star Fox have had a less than stellar track record. 1997’s remake Star Fox 64 was good but not much of an advancement over the original’s gameplay, 2002’s Star Fox Adventures, built on Rare’s abandoned Dinosaur Planet for the N64, was a hollow Zelda clone with franchise characters tacked on, and last year’s Namco developed Star Fox Assault added ground based shooting but even its traditional on-rails flight levels felt loose and underdeveloped. Now, just over a year since Assault’s release, comes Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS and it is without argument the finest entry in the series since the original.

Command begins after the events in Assault. Team Star Fox has disbanded and now, with the new threat of the Anglar emerging from the wasteland planet Venom, the Lylat system is under siege without their heroes. Fox McCloud enters the fray solo and over the first voyage through the game’s storyline, the team is re-assembled, the good guys save the day and all’s well on Corneria. The action surrounding this story has its roots in the original but is a whole new take on Nintendo’s brand of space combat.