I've always considered Nintendo's Star Fox franchise to be one of the company's more bizarre series because it just won't leave it be. It doesn't matter how many people are stuck on the fast-paced action of Star Fox 64; the publisher has tossed them a curve, for better (Star Fox Adventure or worse (Star Fox Assault). In fact, the same holds true of the newest game in the series, Star Fox Command for the Nintendo DS. There's a hefty dose of air-based combat, but developer Q-Games has also tossed in a light helping of turn-based strategy shenanigans, except this time, the radical gameplay change only enhances the experience, making this a very welcome addition to the series.

At first, I was put off by the turn-based strategy because I lusted for action. All I wanted to do was hop into an Arwing, point it in a direction, and blow things up. I didn't want to land, I didn't want to hit switches to open doors, and I most certainly didn't want to take turns with the enemy while staring at a simplistic world map. But it all works, so well in fact that I wish the turn-based elements were far more complex than they really are. I found myself, over the course of several hours, craving it. It's extremely simplistic stuff, far less advanced than the feature heavy Advance Wars, but it's been done in such a way that it never grows tedious, primarily because the developers have done an excellent job weaving the combat through its fabric.

Here's how it works. The Great Fox (which is this huge mother ship) floats into position and then Fox McCloud, or whomever, takes off from its hangar. Spread across the map are enemies as well as captured bases that need to be liberated, but in order to do this you've got to make the right decisions and you only get a handful of turns. So basically, you'll plot your course by drawing a line from your Arwing in a desired direction (you can only travel as far as your fuel will allow), and then you end your turn and watch your ship and enemy craft move about. Whenever you cross paths you're thrust into a real-time dog fight, and these battles occur quite often.

The combat is similar to the older games in the series in that you get to pilot a spacecraft and go around blowing up all sorts of aliens, except unlike this game's predecessors (which feature on-rails combat) Command gives you free control of your ship. Furthermore, you control it via the touch screen. Dragging the stylus along the bottom screen can turn your ship as well as make it ascend and descend, and scratching it in various places causes it to brake, speed up, or barrel roll. There's also buttons that, when touched, will allow you to perform a u-turn or a loop. Things tend to get a little hectic since everything's mapped to the same screen (it's very easy to speed up when you intended to spin around), but the controls work most of the time and mistakes can be easily fixed.

All of these dog fights have very specific objectives that must be completed within a time limit and they're all very simple and straight forward. The game will show you a brief cut scene of the enemies that you have to destroy and then you can take them out. With that being said, battles can last for less than 50 seconds or two minutes depending on what you're going after. You can rush in, destroy the main bad guy and get out, or you can go for max points and eliminate every living thing on the board.