Star Fox Assault

Star Fox Assault was developed by the Ace Combat team over at Namco for the GameCube. Taking place after Star Fox Adventures, the Star Fox team is sent to help fight against a rebellion taking place in Fortuna and later eliminate the evil Aparoids. This game returns partially to Star Fox 64's style of gameplay by offering an expanded multi-player mode, with a profile & stats feature similar to that of Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Plot
While chasing down Andrew Oikonny, formerly of Star Wolf, he defends himself from the Cornerian Army & Star Fox team with the last of his uncle Andross' fleet. When Team Star Fox catches up with him, a big ol' bug appears, destroys Andrew, and attacks the team. These bugs are like a plague that are spreading through the galaxy. They have a knack for infecting things like parasites. Team Star Fox travels the galaxy to find their hive and take out the evil, evil, race of bugs known as Aparoids. But apparently that can't be accomplished all from the seat of an Arwing.

Criticism

 * The game is largely looked down upon for featuring far too many on-foot, free-roaming levels. The familiar Arwing flying & shooting levels make up less than half of the game. Many feel that this and Star Fox Adventures drifts too far from Star Fox's style of gameplay.  The level design for these parts have also been considered "weak sauce".
 * The game is rather short. While Star Fox 64 was equally short, the arcade style gameplay that involved no saving artificially lengthened it's playability, it also had multiple paths meaning the game had a large replay value.  The saving in this game and the linear path however made the 10 levels go by quickly.  Whether or not this could be helped is arguable.
 * Characters such as Falco Lombardi are changed from their Star Fox 64 persona, Falco would often anger Fox with insults in Star Fox 64, while in Star Fox: Assault he is much closer to Fox.
 * Tank & on-foot controls can be seen as unwieldy.

Trivia

 * Star Fox Assault was released a whole two weeks earlier as a rental through Blockbuster.
 * The NES game, Xevious is unlockable through obtaining all Silver medals.