Starfox Assault - Disappointing

TCamen

Got 'Starfox Assault' (US/NTSC) today in the post from Play-Asia.

Unfortunately I have to say, it's pretty damn disappointing. I probably should've read some reviews first, but I figured Namco & Nintendo could bring the series back to basics with a bang after SF Adventures...I didn't think much of Star Fox Adventures, mostly because it just wasn't Star Fox in the true sense, but Assault isn't the amazing follow-up I was hoping for, which is a real shame.

Assault is really really arcade-y. It's enjoyable at first and looks pretty impressive, but the whole game is just so hollow. It also only takes 5 hours-ish to play through the WHOLE story mode. It's got none of the spark 'Lylat Wars'/'Starfox 64' had -- Compared to Resident Evil 4, Assault is embarassing in terms of updating a classic with care, yet adding something new to the package. We had tank levels in 'Lylat Wars', we got Fox running around on the ground in 'Adventures', so there's nothing new in Assault, just lots of button-bashing, which gets old very fast.

Assault has no branching missions & it's full of boring level design and uninspiring bosses. The voice acting is VERY annoying and childish, plus there's a non-stop barrage of 'hints' from the various characters on what to do next even if you're already doing it!

All in all, I'd probably be perfectly happy with Assault as a budget title, but not as a full-priced game. It's just average at best, with some decent sections of action. It falls way short of 'Lylat Wars' as an exciting, enjoyable shoot 'em-up from Nintendo.

OY

I have heard that it is not that great yes!
Really interested in playing RE4 though. Do not have a Gamecube and am thinking about getting one....

Actually to hell with it, i will get a PSP instead...

TCamen

Really interested in playing RE4 though. Do not have a Gamecube and am thinking about getting one....

Afaik, there's gonna be a PS2 port of Resi 4 towards the end of the year, but it'll look nicer on GC. It's hands down the best game on GC in ages

Rew

99 quid for a GC, Donky Conga+Bongos and Mario Kart DD in game. Thats pretty decent.

zynaps

Lylat Wars was an incredible game, wasn't it? A mate of mine rented it out for his N64 years ago and we spent the weekend working on it.

I remember getting all the way to the end boss in his manky brain state on hard mode (or something), about to top his score, when he yanked the cartridge out of the machine and (of course) crashed it :P

Hard to live up to such an excellent creation, really - it was so energetic.

TCamen

Lylat Wars was an incredible game, wasn't it? A mate of mine rented it out for his N64 years ago and we spent the weekend working on it.

Yeah, I think my main problem with 'Assault' is that there's NONE of the 'wow' factor of 'Lylat Wars' present. It's like all the ideas are there, but there's just that extra something missing to make it a killer game. It's a big disappointment that 'Assault' doesn't manage to suck you into the battles like 'Lylat Wars' did in pretty much every level.

Annoyingly 'Assault' revisits some of the levels from 'Lylat Wars' and even though the locations LOOK nicer, there's just not the same brilliance in the design at all.

OY

TCamen wrote:

Afaik, there's gonna be a PS2 port of Resi 4 towards the end of the year, but it'll look nicer on GC. It's hands down the best game on GC in ages

Cool! I am excited! I was disappointed with RE: Outbreak!
Looking forward to it!

tman

nevernev wrote:

Cool! I am excited! I was disappointed with RE: Outbreak!
Looking forward to it!

it really is as good as gamerankings.com would have you believe
looking set to be my game of the year, and finally a game that i wouldn't hesitate to recommend someone buy a gc for. (metroid prime is pretty much my all time favourite game, but it might not be as accessible to some as resi4)

pissed off that assault isn't a worthy successor to the past 2... looks like there's only killer7 and zelda to look forward to on the cube now

Stalfos

tman wrote:

pissed off that assault isn't a worthy successor to the past 2... looks like there's only killer7 and zelda to look forward to on the cube now

If your into your RPG, their's a game called Baren Kaitos being released next week and Advanced Wars is being brought over to the GameCube.

Here a link to this years releases:GameCube release dates 2005

Saw a review a Star fox assault a while back and it said the game looks like two different companies made as the first level was spectacular but the rest of the game was garbage.

tman

Stalfos wrote:

If your into your RPG, their's a game called Baren Kaitos being released next week and Advanced Wars is being brought over to the GameCube.

hmmm... i kind of enjoy rpgs, but their lifespan is generally too long. its not that i don't want a game to last me 15+ hours, just that any rpgs i've played this year (vampire bloodlines and kotorII) have bored me with their limited variety of environments. paper mario 2 is on the way to me now, so hopefully that'll entertain me to the end.

never really got into the gba advance wars games in my brief plays of them, so i doubt i'd bother with the gc version.

viewtiful joe 2 is the only other noteworthy game there, and thats not even an exclusive now afaik
well worth buying (god knows why its taking them so long to release... i got my ntsc copy in december ffs!)

lol. sorry about the ot'ness... just felt like a rant about the gc's crappy lineup.

i had a quick blast at starwing on an emulator the other day, just to remind myself of how impressive those gouraud shaded polys were... the game is an absolute ****ing gem tbh
can't remember it being as slow as it is in emulated form though... could just be that the fx chip isn't properly supported

TCamen

Saw a review a Star fox assault a while back and it said the game looks like two different companies made as the first level was spectacular but the rest of the game was garbage.

I can't even say I thought the first level was anything special -- it was like a greatest hits compilation of excellent levels from the previous Star Fox games, but not coming close to matching the brilliant design of the originals.

All in all, I'm just more disappointed than anything else -- it's just too short and lacking anything special

GC lineup for the next while is a little sparse alright -- I'm still playing through Resi 4, I'm pacing myself so I don't fly through it and end up with nothing to play

Also, in other 'Nintendo Disappoints' news -- Yoshi Touch & Go for the DS isn't that great either. It's a quite small & limited minigame that comes with a full-game price tag, so again, while it's a decent game, it's not worth the price at all. If it was a bundled demo/game with the DS or something it'd be a lot more palatable, but it shouldn't be released at full price for what you get.

Mr E

Have to disagree there, TCamen..... Got Yoshi a few days ago, and love it. I'm finding it very addictive. I'm a sucker for score based games, anyway. If you're the kind of person who is looking for a beginning, middle and end, you'll be disappointed.

TCamen

Have to disagree there, TCamen..... Got Yoshi a few days ago, and love it. I'm finding it very addictive. I'm a sucker for score based games, anyway. If you're the kind of person who is looking for a beginning, middle and end, you'll be disappointed.

I'd agree that the main disappointment is the lack of clearly defined levels/stages to progress through. In saying that, I do find myself going back again and again to the game just to get a few yards further, even though I don't think it's a AA title.

WarioWare Touched is a tad on the disappointing side too, though it's great when there's more than one person playing -- yes, you really do look ridiculous blowing away @ the screen hehe. It's just far too easy compared to the previous WarioWare titles. Fine there's replay value in going through the mingames again at a faster pace and all, but the standard difficulty the game starts with is just too low. It does have tons of charm and humour and it's a really fun game, but just a slight twist on the formula already established, rather than any great leap forward. I'm totally addicted to the toy room game where you draw the lines under the bouncing ball to get it to go higher

More seriously on the topic of Nintendo disappointment...

I've had my DS since Christmas, along with Mario 64 DS & XY/XX Feel The Magic (aka Project Rub). In the last week I got WarioWare Touched! and Yoshi Touch & Go. I think that once you've played the minigames included with Mario 64 DS, the excitement of using the stylus in various ways to complete tasks is somewhat diminished when it comes to Yoshi Touch & Go and Wario. I just think that Yoshi in particular should have MORE for the price - perhaps even a short Yoshi's Island type platformer, but I think so far, the DS touch screen isn't being exploited as well as it could be i.e, it's the same few ideas being present in different ways. Rub/Blow/Drag etc...

Ultimately I think that if other companies can put out DS games @ lower prices, like 'Sprung', I don't think Nintendo should be charging full price for games that don't really warrant it. I think they should be trying to figure out what the hell to do with the microphone and stylus that we haven't experienced already between the minigames of Mario DS, XY/XX and Wario!

KdjaCL

Did you play it on hard?

Oringal only got real good on hard trying to get the medals for every level.


kdjac

TCamen

Did you play it on hard?

If you mean WarioWare Touched!... I'm pretty sure there's just one difficulty setting for the game. Once you play through the various characters' challenges, you can go back and try then again at an increased speed, but out of the box, the game is very easy. Only takes a couple of hours to unlock all the characters, and after that, all that's left is trying the same games again @ faster speeds. It would've been nice to select a 'Hard' mode from the start though, because the GC WarioWare was definitely harder than the DS one!

Another annoying feature of WarioWare Touched! is that the characters' intro movies/comic strips go on FOREVER, and there's no way to skip past them the first time you play the level, so you have to sit there for a good few minutes while it all plays out -- and it doesn't even make a difference to the minigames you've waiting to play, so Nintendo really should've allowed people to skip them right away!

KdjaCL

No Starfox , did you play that on hard ?

kdjac

Retr0gamer

tman wrote:

i had a quick blast at starwing on an emulator the other day, just to remind myself of how impressive those gouraud shaded polys were... the game is an absolute ****ing gem tbh
can't remember it being as slow as it is in emulated form though... could just be that the fx chip isn't properly supported

The superfx chip is emulated perfectly. The frame rate on starfox was terrible originally as well. Try getting the american rom. It runs 20% faster.

As for RPGs you should try playing some console RPGs. They are much more fun I feel and have less nerdy boring stuff like D&D dice rolls and ridiculous star management. Tales of Symphonia is excellent. No random battles and the battle system is a beat'em up. Your going to love Paper Mario 2, it's great fun.

evad_lhorg

this game looked promising but after reading the reviews ill stay clear. i mean come on ONLY 3 ARWING LEVELS!!!!!!! thats what made lylat wars fun. space battles and then a bit of landmaster but none of this on foot crap.

TCamen

No Starfox , did you play that on hard ?

It was on 'medium', but I really didn't think it was so short that it had to be on hard to make it last. Unfortunately I was wrong :mad: