I knew I had to buy Starfox Adventures. The series is one of my favourites and since I saw an early review of "Starfox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet", I was so excited (I do love dinosaurs!).

However, SFA delivers some heavy disappointments.

Firstly, it does have a bit going for it; the graphics are very good. Environments are beautiful and the characters are lovingly designed with a high level of detail. There are a few good ideas in it; bits of the game that in isolation will make you think fondly of it.

The main aspects of this game that stand out for me, though, are its flaws.

The combat system is awful. The auto lock-on makes it easy but also at times frustrating if you can't target the enemy you want to. It's pretty much mash-A-all-the-way-a-la-LOTR combat which involves no skill whatsoever. It's repetitive and boring.

The voice acting is atrocious. The Prince Tricky will irritate you no end. He is qutie fun to play ball with though.. but don't make the same mistake as me and assume that his changing colour is somehow significant - it is not! Don't waste your time with that ball!!

The difficulty is just confusing. Overall I'd say IT'S TOO EASY - it babysits you so much. There is nowhere to go but the next place you have to go to and the next thing you need to do is forever exceedingly obvious. Puzzles are generally minimally taxing.
However, there are a couple of bits that will make you tear your hair out - my advice is to leave it in the box for a month, come back to it, have a go and see how you do! Two words: Fear Krazoa (you'll know what I mean when you've done it!).

The story is really quite poor. I wasn't really thinking about it though and it did catch me by surprise in the end but I should think most people worked it out at some point before they got there.

SFA is endearing in its way - the only reason I never traded it in is because it is just so pretty! Not a great reason to buy a game though. It's fairly enjoyable, frustrating at times - it's a casual game. I suppose it does what it was designed to do pretty well.