Star Fox Command boasts one of the best control schemes for the DS... but the story is very short.
User Rating: 8.5 | Star Fox Command DS
Star Fox Command was ultimately an impulse buy for me, as kind of an out of the blue interest while browsing store shelves. Lucky for me that it would happen to be a good buy. Star Fox Command makes some of the most brilliant use of the DS I've seen thus far, with single and multi-card play, Wi-Fi play, as well as an excellent control scheme that becomes second nature. You fly around using the touch screen almost exclusively. Gliding your stylus around steers your Arwing around the battlefield, while rubbing at any time will start the infamous barrel roll. Also, there are icons you can tap to initiate U-turns and loop manuevers. There is also another icon used as a tap and drag to plant bombs to wipe out large numbers of enemies. You also use either the D-pad or A, B, X, and Y to fire weapons. This is easy to pick up and is also pretty easy to master. So, with as much credit as I give the controls, I do wonder if it makes the game too easy. Not only is there dogfighting, but there's also a new strategic layer to the game. In this mode, you'll rub the screen to clear away the fog of war, and draw flight paths for your team to intercept motherships, enemy craft, and missles. Going after missiles starts a quick minigame of zooming through squares (called beacons) to catch up to the missile, and then try shooting it down while still going through the beacons. Sad to say, it's where most of the challenge in this game lies.
Sound is for the most part, good. Music isn't memorable, and the SFX are great... but for goodness sakes, when characters "talk" it sounds like a bunch of garbled noise. The "speech" could not have been in there and I would've been much less annoyed. The story can branch off and end in 9 different endings, which is a nice touch, but it doesn't take much to get to all 9 as this game is unbelievably short to get through. I can see it being good for say, quick play on a work break, but if you're looking for a Star Fox story with some meat, you may not be satisfied here.
In multiplayer you can battle locally with up to 6 people, or on Wi-Fi with 4, but I have no idea how smooth it is or if it's a worthwhile experience since I could not find anyone to battle against. In all, Star Fox Command is a very great game, with a robust multiplayer option, but the story mode, while the branching out is nice, is still very short to get to the endings. Either way, it's easy to recommend this game to someone who needs some dogfighting on the DS. 
