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In space, no one can hear you scream...not until the patch comes out, anyway.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 109 / 113
Date: December 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My son has been eagerly anticipating this game for nearly a month (the release date was actually on our calendar), and I was loathe to disappoint him. I drove clear across town to the only EB in the phone book that had it in stock (two days AFTER the release date, BTW. That is, the release date that was announced after the previous release date, which was pushed back from an earlier release date, but is stilll a week before the OTHER release date, of the xbox version, that is...explain THAT to a ten year old who just keeps obsessively reciting the words "Captain's Stardate 2905.2 etc". It has not been a good week. But I digress...)

Anyway, we finally have it. So, naturally, it turned out to be a complete turd. Granted, it's a very attractive turd, all shiny and encased in lucite, but still a turd. The ships look great, but the overall game feels rushed, with sparse features and awkward controls. The box contains the usual brochure masquerading as a player's guide...I've received bigger pamphlets for free just standing around downtown. Maybe they should just start printing the instructions on the inside fo the box lid, like Milton Bradley does? I'm sure they could do it with this game, which has all of the depth of a California blond named Candy.

I suspect it may be a better xbox game, but the PC game is unplayable, owing to a finger-cramping keyboard-only interface that cannot be reconfigured to a more rational layout without knowledge of the arcane art of XML, and it does not support a joystick without the use of third-party software. This alone is a show stopper. I have two game-crazy kids that played games like Starfleet Command 2 and 3 for hours on end who gave this game less than ten minutes of their time before giving up in disgust.

You have to patch it immediately if you wish to play multiplayer(oh, yes, there is a patch already), and these skirmishes are very limited in scope. But that's OK, you'll be too busy pondering the need for the game developers to include every Nebula, planet, comet and asteroid in the galaxy all within fifty feet of eachother. It looks like the Hubble threw up. I think they found all that missing dark matter. Turns out, it's pink. Who knew?

The only nice thing I can say about it is that the ships are pretty, and the installer never prompted me for a serial number. This makes me a bit suspicious as to just how they have DRM'ed it, but until my computer suddenly beams itself to Mad Doc software in the middle of the night, I'm not going to worry about it.

Anyway, skip this one unless you have an Xbox, or at least wait until the modders have their way with it. Out of the box, it's a train wreck of a game.

another xbox 360 port.. :(

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 14 / 26
Date: December 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well.. just as the topic says.. It's a 360 port. You cannot change the key mappings without editing an XML file in the game directory. There is already a patch out for it because multi player doesn't work out of the box. 4 player (2 ship) limit on multiplayer mode (which has two modes, deathmatch and coop wave) The game runs OK I suppose, but there are little to few options for a PC game. I would have preferred they left this game as a 360 game only so at least that way it would have saved me the disappointment. Personally I wouldn't buy this game if I were you guys.. just look at a friend's copy and you'll see what I'm talking about. This game is a step below Bridge Commander (which wasn't all that great either). Maybe I'm just too much of a hardcore trekkie :(

High System Requirements, too little variety, but some fun still

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: December 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have a 3.02ghz Pentium 4 PC with a 128mb NVIDIA graphics card and over 700mb RAM. I don't claim to have the world's most powerful gaming PC by any means, but I expected a little less trouble than I am having with Star Trek: Legacy. Running at Low Graphics setting and 800 x 600 resolution (the lowest possible), the game is still unplayable due to choppiness and slow reaction time. Maybe I should have been more careful, but I assumed I would at least be able to play on low settings until I can upgrade my graphics card. Not so.

I can tell, however, that the game could have a decent fun factor if I could just play it successfully, just from what I have seen. The ship combat mode is fun initially, even when choppy, but repetitive and it gets old pretty quickly it seems.

Overall, just make sure you have high systems specs and a love of Trek and you could find this game a lot of fun. I just feel it could have been an equally good game without such high-end requirements.

Follow the tutorial instructions!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 18
Date: December 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this game for the past several hours now and can't understand why anyone is having so many problems (aside from multiplayer which was certainly a problem.) Granted, game manuals rarely carry any uselful information these days, that's why there's an in-game tutorial that explains how to control your ship and perform tasks from simple navigation to fleet combat. The complexity of key commands adds another level of difficulty to the game that isn't present in most modern titles that incorporate just pointing and clicking through a situation. I can't even fathom how a previous reviewer called this a step below Bridge Commander. Sadly, yes the game requires a decent computer in order to run smoothly, however, it won't require extreme upgrades: I'm currently operating an AMD64 rig at 1.8Ghz with 1gig of ram, and a 256MB video card that doesn't cost more than $75 today. It cost me just over $500 and I've had this system for just 2 and a half years and i haven't had to add anything to it.

Not bad!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 16
Date: December 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A fun and enjoyable game. Not the best game ever conceived by any means but it gets the job done and it's entertaining.

This egg is still soft in the middle.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: December 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Another disappointment. Another casualty of the console driven push for style over substance.

First, understand that this is a shooter, light on the tactical. If you are expecting an adventure, or the depth of say, Bridge Commander, or even Starfleet Command, you are in for a surprise. The voices of five captains, are all you get as far as frills go. You will never see them. You will never see cut-scenes. There is no Bridge view. You get a map, and the standard space view, and that is all you will ever see, with the exception of the menu.

The graphics are lovely, for the most part, but seem to carry with them unrealistic system requirements. I far exceed the suggested system, yet my game stuttered in the strangest, seemingly least demanding places. I chalk this up to poorly optimized code. Audio static, and skipping was heard at the main menu, and during play-back of the extras, which stuttered as well, while the bulk of the game ran smoothly.

Controls are an unresponsive nightmare, minimal, and cannot be changed. Word on the official forums is to use an Xbox 360 controller (!?!), I'm sorry, but I find this insulting, and proof positive that this is a console port. 360 controller buttons are even mentioned in the manual!

I never did try multiplayer, before uninstalling, but a patch has quickly been released to allow people to connect, I suppose. I think it's worth bringing up here, that it took almost ten minutes to uninstall. All of these issues lead me to believe the game was rushed.

Still, even in full working order, this would not be the Star Trek experience I had hoped to have. This is a shooter. Very plain, and very simple.

Even so, it worries me that PC gamers are seeing more and more of these rush jobs, more and more of these console ports, that promise cutting edge graphics, and little else. Even if this game worked out of the box, it would still lack soul, depth, and creativity.

Sadly, Bridge Commander is still the game of choice, for me.

By the end of Archer missions, fun kicks in...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 13
Date: December 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I agree with many that getting the hang of this game takes a bit of time (I had the same problem with Bridge Commander, and I just played that game again straight through to get excited for Legacy).

By the time you get Kirk's Enterprise, and you have learned to warp on the strategic map, learned to conserve phaser power for the close, continuous shot, learned to allocate energy on the fly, and just savor the effects of the weapons and models (as opposed to backgrounds, that I think are really ugly), this is a great experience.

** Update **
I have been playing this game for a week now and continue to really enjoy it (in fact, I like this game more and more with time). I know there is a massive negative reaction to this game now, which is at least inconsistent with my own experience. I personally find the controls to be quite elegant. I agree that I don't like the design decision to have to play multiple phases of a mission before being allowed to save it. But if I could beg for one feature, it would have been to add the equivalent of the galactic conquest/"battle for twenty worlds" open ended game that was in Star Wars: Battlefront II. It would be great to be served up an hour worth of quick battles that had some mild strategic element and a sense of consequences.

Not what you would expect.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: December 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Even though it's made by Mad Doc, it is not like the Armada series, or what you think a modern RTS game is. It is a shoot with some tactics.

Bottom line you, you will be pushing the left and right mouse buttons a lot!

I had high hopes... was let down way more than I anticipated

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 102 / 105
Date: December 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The two games I would recommend as an alternative: Bridge Commander and Starfleet Command 3 are both near impossible to find nowadays.

You know that you are in trouble when the PC game recommends the controller for the console it was ported from - and when you find AI files from STAR TREK ARMADA dated 1998 in the installation directory.

It is difficult to change the control settings for novice users. There is no in-game menu to do such - you are required to edit a file in notepad/textpad to do this.

The graphics settings constantly reset themselves if you try to edit the config files to actually make the game look decent.

There is little to no tactical depth... you can warp right in to planets/asteroids and it does no damage to your ship. There is no factor in a battle beyond your ship's stats versus whoever you are fightings stats - so the bigger ship wins always.

It would have been nice to run into an asteroid field as the Defiant - zigzagging among asteroid while the Romulan Warbird chasing you ends up getting plowed by an asteroid because of its sluggish controls - weakening it enough so that you can turn and do some damage while it is hurt.

Instead it follows you in, shrugs off all the asteroids and then kills you in 10 seconds because you cannot warp out of the asteroid field.

Shield facings are irrelevant... so no tactical decisions there. The only relevance (and it is small) is the range you are before you open up with phasers.

There is excellent sound and voiceovers in this game... but it does not save the trainwreck that it has become. I was expecting a lot more... and I wish the extended development time (and multiple push-backs of my shipping here at Amazon) were used to improve the programming (not sticking with header files from a 1998 game) instead of just recording voiceovers.

It would be nice if the developer opened up the game for modding teams to save. As-is, I think that Mad Doc spent more time on the intro movie advertising their company than they did on the game.

Shame.

I can't beleive Bethesda put their name on this.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This has to be one of the most pathetic ports from the 360 that I've ever encountered. The manual and tutorial still reference buttons from the 360 controller (anyone know what key on the keyboard LS happens to be?), and even once you figure out the commands, you're 50/50 on getting them to actually work. I've had the game tell me hundreds of times that I have an ideal phaser lock on the enemy, but never let me actually fire at them. Torpedos are an even greater problem, as their targeting arc seems totally unrelated to the physical locations of the launchers on the ship (for those that are actually fans, this can be really confusing.) The storyline is shallow, an excuse to put your ship into combat with other ships and nothing more.

Graphics on the highest settings are similar to Microsoft's Freelancer, with most of its frills turned off. Most of the ships are fairly well modeled, but the textures on them don't always stick like they should, particularly on cloaked/recently uncloaked ships. Overall, the graphics look like they would have fit in better four or five years ago, and I can't rationalize the high system specs.

This doesn't feel like Star Trek to me, this title had a lot of potential, but they just didn't take it far enough. This is a clear example of why games should not be ported from the consoles, but rather to them instead.

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