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Birth of the Federation Needs to BE REBORN

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 11
Date: January 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

What a disappointment! I anticipated beaming onto other ships and mind melds...maybe even a holodeck- at the least great animation...but no. The battle scenes are realistic, fast, and clear, but that is where it ends. Colonization is a still graphic,the races also are not animated. The game is long- the research doesn't seem to make any difference in what you can build- it is very slow moving and uninteresting. It seems like a remake on a lesser level of MOO2. I vote for MOO2.

Star Trek Birth of the Federation

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: May 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

For those who have never heard of Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, don't worry. Your not missing much at all. But just so you know more about the game, I'll tell you a little more about it. In the game, you can take command of five different species. These species include the Federation of Planets, Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Ferengi Alliance, and the Cardassian Union. Along with these major species to start off with, their are many minor races which you may remember if you watch any of the Star Trek tv shows or movies. These minor races can build ships, declare war on you, join your faction, or many other things, which are all controlled by the AI.

With all turn based strategies, this one comes with no story line at all. This is of course because your supposed to play, and the story is created as you go along, giving you a different experience every time you play. Sounds good, but with this game, that's NOT the case at all. And trust me, you won't be impressed by the turn based Starship battles. It has some nice features, like choosing an attack sequence, and the replay, but quickly becomes boring fast, and one of the main reasons people like Star Trek is because things blow up, right? I was very frustrated at first, because of how confusing the game was. So I thought "Maybe I should load the tutorial" (I was thinking load, because sadly they didn't write one in the instruction manual.) So I loaded the first tutorial, and their was just a normal game. So I pushed a lot of buttons, screwed around for a couple hours, and finally got the hang of it. And was the time spent worth it? Not a chance. Then I read what it said in the instruction manual, I had to print the tutorial out. I would think after spending 50 dollars, they would be able to print out a couple pages, rather then tell me I needed to do it. Once you finally get to learn the game, and play it, in about 50 game turns, the game gets so repetitive it's very boring. This gives you 30-60 minuets of partial fun and enjoyment. The only real good part about the game is that it has just about everything you'll remember from the many Star Trek series and movies. Infact all of the minor races are seen in the Star Trek tv shows. From the Bolian's to the Vulcan's, they weren't made up during game production, but all from before. With a poor interface, bad ship battles, and a quickly boring game, this might not be the best game in the world. I did find some enjoyment by forcing the other species to pay me tribute, and conquering minor racers however.

Great visuals, slow pace

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: December 07, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge fan of both Star Trek and sci-fi empire games (like Master of Orion 1 and 2) but I was disappointed by BOF. It feels a lot more like Star Wars: Rebellion than the classic Master games. The ability to choose which race you play is excellent--each race has its look and feel as well as game mechanics. Unfortunately, it gets boring fast. You must micromanage each and every system, ship, tech advance, other races, pretty much everything. Also, once you get a bit ahead, the computer-controlled races have no chance. And if the Borg show up, forget about it.

I'll stick with Master of Orion 2

So much potential.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: December 09, 1999
Author: Amazon User

A Master of Orion type game set in the Star Trek Universe! When I first heard this game would be coming I was thrilled and impatiently waited for the day it would be released. Unfortunately waiting for the game was the most exciting thing about it.

Now don't get me wrong it is a "good" game but it is not great or fantastic in any sense of the word. If it had been released a few years ago it probably would have been received better but the truth is that this game is simply Master of Orion with Star Trek names and graphics. There was no real improvement or innovation in this game. Star Trek's rich background and history are given short thrift. The Diplomatic system is shallow and uninspired. The combat system held the most hope but it simply becomes a battle of the strongest fleet wins, with little chance for tactics or strategy. One of the worst features is trying to navigate around the map. You can't simply scroll with the mouse pointer like in MOO but have to zoom and unzoom between different map settings.

In the end if you really love Star Trek and simply can't get enough this game will probably interest you. But if you are a serious gamer looking for new challenges, wait for this game to hit the clearance rack.

It had the chance...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 28, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Birth of the Federation seemed like a reasonable purchase at the time -- but it's long since migrated off of my hard drive. Microprose has a solid history with Masters of Orion behind it, but they just didn't do justice to that game and Star Trek at the same time.

The game continues along a similar vein to MOO2 complete with a pretty reasonable combat environment. Like MOO2, though, it becomes a lot of micromanagement for not a whole lot of return and the computer just doesn't seem up to the task of truly defeating you.

If you're a Star Trek fanatic, you likely "have" to own this game and will enjoy it simply because of the universe (be warned though: it's all Next Generation due to licensing). If you're a turn-based strategy fanatic my suggestion is to stick with MOO2 or look elsewhere.

If you do purchase the game -- make sure to download the update from Microprose.

good, but slow, game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Being from the Master of Orion camp, and having not enjoyed MOOII very much, I was expecting great things from this game. It is a good game--better than MOOII.

However, the game has some faults. For the ST fan, there are some problems with the races (the Federation is fairly aggressive when playing as another race, for instance), the play is SLOOOOOW (on a 450 PII, 96MB RAM), and the micromanagement of systems takes a long time to get the hang of (but not nearly as bad as Star Wars: Rebellion).

All in all, a good addition to the strategy minded--campaigns can last for days. However, there's still no beating MOO as the best space stategy game.

Good game, slow play

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 19, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is a good game but has a slow game play that can get boring. The good part about it is a pretty good game and it has some good combat in it. The bad parts are that the voice and music can get annoying and it takes forever to load. It will take a good 3 hours to learn to play and sometimes it gets frustrating. If I where you I would buy this product. Its worth every penney

This is slow, but a good one

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

OH MY GOD CAN IT BE ANY SLOWER. I has running it on a Pentium II and lord was it slow. I like the game though. It is.... different. I have tryed playing as all the sects (Fed. Kling. Car. Rom. Fur.) and it is hard to get started, but then it goes okay until turn about 150. Then you just can't get a break. This is not a one day game it can take YEARS to play.

Slash77

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In its day this was ok, but graphics are not really state of the art and in retrospect too complex with little action.

Same Game Different Name

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: July 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a good game, don't get me wrong. I think it is an entertaining game. It is just so much like Civilization, Masters Of Orion, and Star Wars Rebellion.

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