It's never been as successful or acclaimed as some of Nintendo's other franchises, but the Starfox series has always had a special place in my heart. The SNES original was one of the very few games I owned for the console (I'll never forget seeing its Mode 7 graphics for the first time), and Lylat Wars (or Starfox 64) was the first game I ever got for my brand new Nintendo 64. The forgettable Starfox Adventures aside, I've always had a certain inclination towards Fox and his crew. Which is why the…ordinariness of Starfox Assault is that bit more disappointing.

The old cast are back. Our noble hero Fox McCloud, and his pals Falco, the no-bullshit bird, Slippy (who is as annoying as ever) and Krystal, from Starfox Adventures, who's as useless as her British accent is irritating, and feels out of place in the team. Peppy, now too old for this shit, commands the team with the Doberman Pepper. The team's old nemesis' feature too, although not in a role you'd expect them to.

All the team is back including Krystal from Adventures.

Once again, the peace of the Lylat System is under threat, and our fighters have been called into action. Your adversary is a new one: the aparoids. Think the Replicators from Stargate SG-1 or the Phalanx from the X-Men comics and you'll get the idea. They're a convenient enemy, the developer can adapt them into different threats, but they lack the character of Andross and his boys. Defeating them in the first two Starfoxs was fulfilling because you had a face and a personality to put down; here it's just a bunch of generic robots. Although they do allow some interesting plot points in the game.

The main problem with Starfox Adventures was that it never felt like a Starfox game, mainly because of the transference in genre. Fox was a space fighter; he was not an adventurer. All fans wanted from the franchise was a good, action-packed, space opera, That was what the Starfox name was all about. Too bad Namco didn't realise that.

They've unnecessarily diverged the gameplay into ground levels that cannot hold their own against the space shooting ones. The reasons behind this are pretty incomprehensible. This is Starfox – a franchise built on memories of action-packed laser shootouts, on asteroid fields, on on-rails fluidity, on colossal bosses and tight, nerve-racking space battles. Well, not anymore: thanks to Adventure and Assault it's now also known for poor use of other genres. The third-person levels only weaken the experience.

Fox takes to land!.. to shoot lame robot insects that is.

They are, generally, as dull as dishwater. Not only have Namco added unnecessary extra gameplay styles; they haven't even pulled them off well. The action is incredibly simplistic, childish almost, demanding almost nothing in the way of tactics or strategy or, to be honest, skill. You get a range of weapons and have to blast away numerous aparoids; usually in Stormtrooper form or insect-shaped robots. Level design is repetitive and vague, filled with uncomfortable empty space. Alien worlds are draped in generic purples and blues. Combat is a case of holding down the R trigger and sweeping the cursor across your adversaries. Grenade control is awful. You can't strafe while zooming with a sniper rifle, and you can't fire it without zooming. It's an amalgam of amateurism.

The intensity never goes beyond lukewarm because it's all so basic. Since Namco felt the need to put Fox on foot, I'd have much preferred the action to be on-rails, concentrated and fluid in the same way aerial Starfox used to be. Maybe something like the N64's Sin & Punishment? Anything besides the generic style present, so much so that removing the Starfox IP would render it the exact same as every other average third-person shooter. Hardly good enough for one of Nintendo's classic franchises, is it?

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Some levels try and alleviate the boredom by broadening your options, offering you the chance to take control of the Landmaster. These parts are better, but not by much. The non-Arwing levels in Lylat Wars, for example, were fun because they weren't open-ended; the progressing camera pushed you forward through the levels, making it more frantic and more focused. Here, focus is lost. Landmaster controls are regularly clumsy, making fluid movement a challenge in itself, the problem exasperated by more sub-average level design.

In an effort to spice up the pedestrian, the designers offer a mix of combat means in some levels. The idea is that you switch between Arwing, Landmaster or foot depending on what best suits your situation, creating some strategy and some diversity in the levels, but this rarely feels anything more than a superficial choice. Land or air? It's hard to care. It's a good concept, but is definitely underused in Assault's small locations. The action is never grand enough to warrant real importance or excitement in the choice of weaponry.

Arwing sections! although they are pretty lacklustre in comparisson to Lylat Wars.

The flying levels, though, are decent. Out of all the levels in the game, they're the ones that feel right. What's instantly noticeable to fans of the series is the polish in the presentation of the levels: the beautiful backgrounds; the trails of light your Arwing leaves; the lasers and explosions. Even your Arwing itself has a slighter sleeker edge to it than before (it's only time Namco's anime-ish art design impresses – elsewhere it's simplistic and unnatural). Unfortunately this new shininess feels like an empty one. Most of the time the action feels like Starfox Lite; for some reason it doesn't carry the same intensity of previous games. Whether it's the visual or sound effects or something else I'm not sure, but the Arwing levels lack the gravitas they were afforded in previous games. Only the final level approaches what I hoped for from Assault; providing a difficult, thrilling run that will have you twisting the controller in exasperation. One out of four isn't brilliant.

Lylat Wars gave gamers sequences that stuck in your memory long after the console was switched off: the Independence Day level; fighting bosses made of lava; the Star Wars-like final dash; driving after a train in the Landmaster. The most disappointing thing about Assault is the utter lack of such moments. Like Adventures before it, it's killed by blandness, so when the game is done and dusted, its only remnants are the hours you can't get back.

Multiplayer serves up some fun. Some.

And it won't be that many hours either; because there's nowhere near enough levels. There are ten in the game, only four of them being proper Arwing levels. You can go back to beat high scores and get medals (there are unlockables) but when the game itself is this dull, you really won't want to. Taking a shot at the higher difficulties on the Arwing levels improves the fun, but just irritates elsewhere. It's hard to believe Namco really expected us to endure the tedium of most of the game, just for some medals. Alternative routes through the game, and new levels in them, facilitated replay in Lylat Wars; in Assault it's just a straight run. There's simply not enough game on the disc.

Multiplayer adds to the game a little. Sure it's infested with the same uninspiring design and basic game mechanics as the single player, but some cheap thrills can be extracted from it. Beyond that, though, it lacks the depth to provide a sustainable multiplayer experience.

When gamers heard the Ace Combat team were doing an airborne Starfox title, images of pulsating dogfights and set pieces were brewed. Such expectations make the final product all the more embittering, but Assault's ineptitude speaks for itself, disappointments aside. It's lazy, it's textbook and less than half of it is worth playing.

First Adventures; now this. Time for Nintendo to reel the franchise back in before any more damage is done, I think.