116
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #235,995 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
I had high hopes... was let down way more than I anticipated
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.
