Star Fox 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)

Gameplay - Star Fox plays surprisingly very well. I still can't get over it. When I heard about the all stylus controls, I was very worried. I totally wrote this game off as gimmicky, touch screen thing that will fail, but I was wrong. The touch screen actually makes flying easier and a lot of fun. The basic gameplay is broken up in to two parts, an overworld strategy map and full 3D battle maps.

In the overworld screens, your objective is to destroy enemy fighters and bases, while protecting your mothership. It is fun to draw out your ship's courses and then preform the attack on the opposing force. During the actual fights, the stylus is your control tapping the screen to boost, break, turns, drop bombs and perform the famous barrel roll. Then only other button needed is the fire button which is mapped on everything besides start and select, so it is easy to find something comfortable. The control is very tight and it is amazing that this game just handles so very well. Also it is very easy to learn. Once you do the 4 training missions, you will pick up on the controls in no time.

The multiplayer works the same way both local and over the Nintendo Wifi Connection and is very strong. In all multiplayer modes, players are only allowed to be Fox and are given just one ship. Some might think of this as bad, but I really like it because it balances out the game so much. I liked the wifi play because of an easy to use ranking system with 26 ranks, (Z being the lowest and A the highest) and good punishment against disconnecters. It is good to see that if someone drops, no one plays, which really prevents people from skipping out.

Graphics - Best on the DS to date, period. The ships look great and the different stages have such high quality textures. I love it.

Sound - I have said it before, I love animalese from Animal Crossing and I love it here in Star Fox: Command. The blaster shots and space noises are fine, but nothing beats the animal nonsense. It will make you smile. Plus it is a really cool option that you can import your own voice as the character's voice and tone.