f your nostrils don’t flare up from the stench of burnt fox hair that the gameplay produces, and your brain doesn’t devolve to the size of a peanut to cope with a story so elementary that only a caveman could embrace it, then your eyes will tear up over the realization that this series has essentially become a big, fat parody of itself. Star Fox was once heralded as the pinnacle of space combat, but it has since been sucked into the black hole of video game mediocrity.

 Assault teases gamers with classically styled Star Fox levels that are brimming with blister-inducing boss battles and mad dashes through asteroid fields. As the feeling emerges that Nintendo has finally created a Star Fox title that is true to the series’ heritage, you are yanked out of the Arwing cockpit and forced to gag on horridly designed stages of Fox running and gunning on foot. Faulty AI has enemies ramming into walls repeatedly, the visuals are so dull that the SNES’s FX chip could probably support them, and the mission objectives are way too repetitive. Having the ability to jump into a tank within these stages does offer momentary solace, but as you’ll quickly learn, little joy can be garnered by controlling this sluggish vehicle. In my opinion, these levels are a complete loss. Adding insult to injury, your desired time in the skies is greatly dwarfed by how much time you’ll spend in agony on foot.

Oddly, the one thing that kept me going through the single player experience was the story, but not in a way that you’d expect. The dialogue is childish and the plot twists are so ridiculous that they make Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure seem as deep and emotionally stirring as a production of Hamlet. It’s bad, but much like watching washed up celebrities make asses of themselves on the Surreal Life, you just can’t pull yourself away from it.

The area where this game shines the most is in multiplayer. As Star Fox has illustrated in the past, you won’t find a better place for aerial dog fighting. This is the kind of multiplayer experience that you can lose countless hours in and still want to lay waste to your friends. A lot of thought went into the maps (there are plenty of places to hide or snipe on foot, and there’s enough room to maneuver an Arwing), and the balancing between weapons and the vehicles is right where it needs to be.

Assault may fail miserably in delivering a single-player experience that players can really sink their teeth into, but it isn’t a complete failure. It’s easily one of the most unique and entertaining multiplayer choices for the GameCube.