I will be honest and say I don’t know much about Star Trek, but I do know I am a Pickard fan. I have never played a Star Trek game before as I have always been happy with the Star Wars franchise. So when I got the chance to review this game I was very open minded and looking forward to it. That changed within 10 minutes of play. The game starts with you being Captain Archer commanding the Enterprise. You come across a Vulcan scientist ship which needs help. Helping the scientist “T’Uerell” then kicks off the story going through Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway. So as you progress through the game and go through the captains you will start facing more advanced races like Klingons, Romulans and Borg.
As you play the part of a captain you are in control of that captain’s ship. You also have 3 other slots to control other ships. Sometimes ships will join you as you progress through the missions or you can by them with points earned after every mission. Different ships will be required in different missions to get the job done. You may require some scout ships to quickly get around the map or maybe some strong fighters to withstand the attacks and give them out.
With the D-Pad you can switch between your ships, you think this would make things easy but sadly the AI ships of which you are not controlling makes things a little more difficult for you. You will find yourself switching between ships to repair them and move them out of danger only to have to do the same to the next ship. Controlling your ship is very easy to get the hang of. The left stick will control the ship, holding the thumbstick tilting the nose down and pulling back the stick to lift the nose. The right stick controls your view so you’re able to steer and look all around your ship and its surroundings. The speed of your ship is set by holding B and selecting a speed setting on the HUD. Pressing B will stop and start your engine and pressing Y will go into warp speed. With a quick press of A button you can give quick orders to all ships. So point your ship to an enemy ship, press A and all ships will turn and head towards that ship.
Going into battle with enemy ships is something you will encounter often and with just two weapons available to you; it can get very repetitive. You will constantly find yourself pressing the right trigger to fire your phasers to get the enemies shield down followed by the torpedoes for structural damage. The targeting system seems to be flaky. You can only fire your weapons when the HUD indicates that you have a lock and sometimes even then it can be hit and miss. Enemy ships seem to always have more powerful weapons than what you have so it’s important you manage where the ships power is routed. This is a nice feature where you can focus the power on either the weapons to gain a better recharging time, beef up the shields or put some more juice on the engines for speed.
It’s not all about the battles though. As you progress through the game you will encounter different objectives such as searching around space scanning planets, transporting away teams and using your tractor beam to pull other ships from safety. Missions will normally last longer than a good half an hour and there is no option to save the game in a mission. So failing is something you don’t want to happen often.
Star Trek: Legacy also features some multiplayer modes and skirmish modes, should you finish or just get bored of the singleplayer campaign. On Live you can play deathmatch and have 4 players battle it out, team up with one another or there is the wave gametype where everyone must try to survive the endless waves of enemies. It is different from playing by yourself but there is still no engrossing gameplay to be had during the games. This isn’t helped when searching for hours for an opponent on Live to battle with or against.
The graphics in Legacy are not too bad. You can see the detail that has gone into the ships, every detail of the Enterprise from the individual windows to the glow of the engines. Planets slowly turn on their axis and look like liquid marbles. Destroy an enemy ship and you will be shown a nice mini explosion followed by an array of ship debris. Unfortunately when paying close attention to this debris, you will notice that it’s nothing more than a chopped up ship and this can suddenly bring you to realise that there was been no real effort put in to this area.
For the real Star Trek fan, you will be happy to know that all 5 captains have their original voices featured in the game. This shows that while the game may be some what lacking in areas, the developers do know what the fans want from the franchise. The sound of phasers going off and torpedoes being fired really takes you back to the series and the eerie space music is always good when you’re cruising around the silence of space.
Achievements are placed well throughout the game. Obtaining an achievement when you complete a set of missions with a captain and achievements for completing them on harder difficulties too, plus there are a good amount of online achievements to unlock also. So for the gamerpoint addicts out there; this should be a good game to pickup and earn some points while progressing through the game.
Overall, Star Trek: Legacy is not a bad game. If you have some spare cash or wondering what game to rent; I advise you to give it a shot. It has a decent campaign mode that will satisfy the average gamer but those looking for a deeper gameplay experience with some longevity may want to look elsewhere. For Star Trek fans looking for a game that doesn’t tarnish the franchise, you should welcome this as a game which can be used as a starting point for more Star Trek games in the future.
Originally Written By: Toby Bodman
