StarFox Command could best be described as StarFox meets Advance Wars Lite. Each level begins with an overhead view of a battle ground. There are various enemies and their installations scattered around the map, as well as their bases. Fox McCloud and his friends also have a base of operations controlled by Rob the Robot. To progress to the next stage you must destroy all the enemies on screen before Fox and his allies are destroyed, turns are exhausted or Rob's base is destroyed by the enemy.

With each turn, the enemy forces will move closer to Rob's base and Fox can choose to engage a moving enemy if they are within his reach on that turn. The stylus is used to draw the Arwing's flight path and at the end of the turn, all the units will make their moves. If any of the enemies cut across the Arwing's flight path, or if aimed for directly, the game then switches to the main battle mode.

The action switches to a third-person behind-the-ship view and consists of fighting in different ‘closed’ arenas. On each level, there are a certain number of enemies to be killed. Each time you kill one, they will drop a star and all of these must be collected before the stage can be completed. Unlike most levels in previous StarFox games, there is no progression: these are enclosed arenas. Hit the invisible wall at the edge and Fox will U-turn back into the arena. As well as the main enemies to destroy, there are many smaller enemies to be despatched. Kill all of these before the final star is collected and a perfect score is achieved. More importantly, extra missiles for your base and extra turns for the main strategy part of the game are made available.

The control scheme is excellent. Everything but shooting, which is done using any of the buttons, is controlled via the stylus: hold the stylus on the screen and move it around to control the Arwing. Tap the top-half of the screen twice to boost and the bottom-half twice to brake. There are also three icons which can be tapped to activate a loop-the-loop (crucial for dog fighting), a U-turn (very handy for missed stars) and most innovatively, the smart bomb.

In almost every shooter since the dawn of time, the smart bomb has been used to clear the screen of enemies. In StarFox 64 (née Lylat Wars) you could use the lock-on facility (which makes a welcome return here) and destroy a group of fighters. StarFox Command goes one stage further: now you can drag and drop the smart bomb icon anywhere on the map screen. It could be on the other side of the arena from your ship and completely out of sight. This makes it much easier when stuck in an arena packed with enemies and observing a strict time limit. Thankfully, the number of bombs is limited so it doesn’t unbalance the gameplay.

When attacking a base, it takes the same format as the normal arena battles except at the end a mothership must be destroyed. Unfortunately, this isn’t as exciting as it sounds as they are all overcome in essentially the same way and it is almost impossible to fail once the appropriate strategy has been formed. The motherships also occasionally fire missiles at your base which must be tracked and intercepted on the strategy screen. To do so, a series of gates must be flown through as the Arwing's speed constantly accelerates. Eventually you will be going too fast to make it through the gates, but as with the motherships, once sussed it’s difficult to fail.

Once each stage has been completed, it’s back to the overhead strategy level and another turn ensues. This continues until Fox or the enemy is dead. The levels themselves are quite varied, although they do conform to the usual sand/underwater/snow themes found in most games. The enemies are also quite varied and do present a fair challenge on some levels. The challenge is ramped up even further by having more than one pilot attacking. As the game progresses, more and more of Fox's old allies join his cause. A set amount of time is provided to share between ships and if a particular stage is performed badly, it will leave precious little time for the next person to complete their stage. If this continues, soon enough there is barely enough time to take out one or two enemies before the clock runs out.

On the later levels, this can really make things tense and is where the game excels. As the clock ticks down, do you go for that time-extend power-up on the far side of the map or head straight for the final enemy to grab the star and finish the level? Deciding what to do at the right time can have a massive effect on the outcome of the entire level as choosing incorrectly means your ship will be downed if time runs out and that equals one less piece for your next turn in battle. It’s also wise to choose the right pilot for the right job: Slippy, for example, has the strongest ship but no lock-on facility. So selecting him for a mission with many fast-moving enemies is a bad idea. On the other hand, selecting Slippy’s girlfriend’s puny ship for any mission is a bad idea full stop!

The mix of strategy and shooting works quite well, and although there isn’t enough strategy here for Advance Wars veterans, shooting enthusiasts are well catered for. The somewhat stilted nature of the arenas can get repetitive with extended play and a few of the later levels are not as tough as they should be. But, as with the original StarFox, seeing the end credits isn’t really the challenge. Finding new routes around the star system, getting perfect scores, clearing a stage without resorting to the smart bomb and getting to the hidden stages are where the real action is. It’s StarFox Jim but not as we know it. However, this is one starship captain that is far from DOA.