Star Trek Armada: Approaching Strategy at Warp Factor .5
Star Trek games are for some reason notoriously awful. I'm not sure if developers are intimidated by the fame of the series, or if there simply aren't very many programmers who can handle the Wing Commander level many of us gamers expect from a good space game. While Armada is better than most, it still could be so much more.
Yes, you can be one of four groups - the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, or the Borg. Each has its own ships and bases, and special abilities. The graphics are Homeworld-esque - very lovely, with details on ships and other stellar objects.
I grew up loving Star Trek, and it is neat to be able to manipulate the ships. However, playing is like sliding miniatures around on a glass tabletop. Where is the space aspect of this? Scales are not always proper as they slide from Point A to Point B. You do traditional StarCraft types of operations - mine your dilithium, build your base, kick out fighting units, take out the enemy. Instead of choosing an attack stance, you choose the red/yellow/green alert.
Getting into the game is extremely difficult for new players. The manual itself is not very helpful, and the commands are not always intuitive. One of our test machines was a P2-266, which they list as supported, but the machine only ran at the lowest graphic setting available, choking constantly. Even on faster systems the crash rate is rather impressive.
I really, really wanted to enjoy this as a strategy game. My love of Trek tried to get me to overlook some of the flaws. However, no matter how gorgeous the ships themselves and the generated mid-game cinematics, the AI is simply lacking and the gameplay itself is nothing special when compared to other strategy games out there.
If you're a Trek lover, grab a copy to play with the ships. If you're a true strategy player, wait and hope that the next one that comes out resolves some of these key issues.
|
|
 |
Walkthrough Index
PS2 / PS3 Reviews
Wii Reviews
Nintendo DS Reviews
XBox Reviews
PC Game Reviews
Video Games and Child Soldiers
Women in Armor
Free Dating Tips
|
|
