A 10 year old concept finally put in a commercial game.
GAME PLAY
Frankly, I've played a lot of crappy games on the DS. I'm tired of it, and after I saw what happened to the GC Star Fox games, I thought the series was dead. I was wrong. This is by far the best DS game in the gameplay department yet. (Though I doubt it can hold it after the upcoming Zelda game is released) It finally uses the touch screen to its fullest, providing accurate flight controls, special manuevers, and free flight control, this is the best star fox yet. I do agree with Gamespot, the one thing missing that the beta SNES game did have was memorable levels WITH free flying sections and on rails sections. How it got cut, I don't know. That is the only problem with the gameplay, it doesn't get old... but it does feel a bit like "fight two more generic levels then a boss" every mission.
The bosses on the other hand, feel like Zelda bosses a puzzle like way. They more likely than not force you to think, and solve puzzles, albeit rudimentary puzzles but puzzles none the less. One boss required you to flip blocks to form a picture before you could harm it. I'll admit that last boss is completely awesome, and brings me back the Star Fox 64 days.
The game does mix things up once in a while, by going different paths, you can go the same area, and fight completely different enemies. Its a nice touch to help the generic battles.
Oh, I almost forgot, but you get to draw your path on a map, and when you hit enemies a battle starts. It really isn't Rome Total War in complexity, so even if you aren't a tactical genius, its easy to win any mission if you have a good trigger figure in the actual battles.
GRAPHICS
Best on the DS yet. The levels are small, and pop up does occur, but the ships look great. The anime-like cut-scenes are... at best mediocre, but they do push the story along nicely. Your reading the text more than looking at the pictures anyway, so it doesn't affect too much. The game doesn't slow down except near the very end. There is so much going on, that you won't get mad or frustrated, and the fact is that it will last less than a minute, and then never return. The explosions and under water effects are nice, and definitely add a layer of polish that most DS games don't have.
SOUND
The blasters, the sounds of flying, explosions. Everything is perfect. The voicing though... is strange. Its got the animal gibberish. The problem is, that it is annoying. You can mix it up by adding your own voice in, which saves the sound from losing more points.
The music on the other hand, it great also. I didn't find too much I remembered from the older games, but the ones that were included were appreciated. The new songs all sounded great, and the fact each fighter had their own profile music (for the most part) added a sense of character to the... characters.
VALUE
Longest DS game I have. I've beaten the game 5 times, completely 4 of the possible 9 paths. The first time through doesn't give you the best ending. in fact, the first ending sucks. But as you go through, you get funny endings, sad endings, completely wierd endings. All of which, avoid the best ending. Its actually pretty difficult to figure out how to get the best ending without 4 play throughs. I'm used the games like NSMB, which took me a 4 hours to beat, so a 20+ hour game is going to get huge points on the DS for value.
TILT
Because of the kind of game it is, Tilt for Star Fox Command is based on grab. As mentioned the story is entertaining. Each character has a unique voice gibberish, I guess that counts for differentiating them a bit. Story is what grabs me to games the most usually. This game the story grabbed me enough at certain areas, and in others it didn't. But, to tell the truth, when going toward the best ending, there were some very interesting facts about Fox's father thrown in for good measure, even questioning Star Fox 64 goals. This story is no where near the level of Wind Waker or Metroid Prime, but its servicable, and gets enough grab to keep you playing when it needs to.
I guess Tilt also gets a bonus since I saw the beta more than 5 years ago, and that was well over 5 years after the beta was put out on the internet. Anyways, the fact that they took a concept from a defunct title and turned it into a playable game kept me entertained, and that is worth something to me.
OVERALL
Overall, This is a great DS title, if not ranking among the best. Its lack of defining levels is its only major fault. Just be sure to invert the stylus controls before you start playing, trust me, you will be doing yourself a favor. Nintendo first party game turns out good in the wake of the Wii, which definitely keeps my hopes up.