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Gunboat Diplomacy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: November 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game, for a handheld, is an excellent title for Star Trek fans. Before I begin with my praise however, I will cover the games defects.
There are a number of bugs and freezes that really should have been screened by quality assurance before this game had a chance to release. The notable bugs are in the Klingon campaign, where I have suffered two freezes and found a break in the crew banter whereing I hailed and scanned two ships that I had already destroyed.
In terms of gameplay, this titles failures are in the AIs inability to adapt (which I have decided is acceptable for a handheld title) and the lack of a proximity alarm feature. I could have made good use of a proximity alarm several times as I've played through the game, which would have helped me to avoid crashing into a starbase (leading to the destruction of said base) and countless asteroids, although I accept that this is simply a part of play, the fixed camera angles make it an annoying circumstance given the heavy damage to shields and hull. I also wish that they had used a more Jedi Academy/ Jedi Outcast style for mulitplayer, in that you could allot a number of upgrade points to your crew individually instead of simply selecting a general proficiency level, as a player using a lower force mastery setting could beat one with a higher one by wisely alloting points, so too might an ensign crew defeat a captain if they focused thier points in an area where the captain player was weak.
I have read several reviews in which people anticipated traditional RTS style play or were dissapointed with the games play premise. To clarify for these people, the tactical end of this game, and the spirit which the game makers were attempting to capture in my opinion, is the spirit of battle sequences from the TOS movies, such as the Wrath of Khan. In this regard, the game succeeds brilliantly, the player must be able to command his/her vessel in a tacitcal scenario that the game presents, outmanuevering, outgunning, or outsmarting the AI opponents.
the ability to customize your playstyle through advanced crew training is a very nice touch, and it holds water for immersion as you can take the crew from ship to ship. Another nice immersion touch is the language option for the Klingon interface, which you may set to display in tlhlngan Hol in the options menu. It gives the Klingon campaign a very immersive feel, and does not interfere with play as the control layout for every ship is identical except for aesthetics, such as a green romulan layout and the traditional red triangular look of Klingon computer terminals used for those ships.
The story arc covers almost all of the classic star trek story types, I'd like to make particular mention of the federation campaign, where you discover that pirates attacking mining freighters are actually disgruntled miners, and that an unscrupulous mining administrator is the real villian. Later on you must protect previous federation enemies from a starship gone rogue. Though this could be criticized as rehashing old Trek plots, in a simulation game of this kind, it's an excellent choice. In addition, the writers have chosen to center the game on the Khitomer Massacre, and the events which follow, allowing the player to explore a previously ambiguous portion of Trek history between the Undiscovered Country and TNG wherein the alliance between the Klingon Empire and the Federation truly solidifies. In the Klingon campaign, the dialogue is well written to reflect the rich Klingon culture that has been developed over the franchise's long run, and you will find yourself chuckling at dialogues from both campaigns and enjoy the opportunites to parley with enemy ships, although in the Klingon campaign this is tantamount to a reminder that you mean to shove torpedoes down thier throats.
The gameplay itself has a good learning curve, and becomes difficult later on requiring a good grasp of Khan style tactics. It is to your benefit to play with all the ships you can in skirmish mode, the reason for this is to familiarize yourself with enemy capabilities. For example, in the federation campaign you will be pitted against many different types of Klingon ships. By playing as those ships in skirmish, you will be able to see where their shields are weakest, how man guns they bring to bear from which angle, and how manueverable each vessel is. Many times while playing through both campaigns I was only able to win because I knew something about these ships that the computer didn't (pardon my qoute). You will have to carefully manage your resources in terms of weapons, shields and energy, and manueverability is an important skill to master as the computer knows to try and use it's shields in a similarly effective manner. By customizing your crew, you will be able to choose your playstyle; for example, my federation playstyle is heavily reliant upon my ability to recharge shields, while my Klingon crew is optimized to allow me to outgun my opponents.
I have not yet had an opportunity to explore the multiplayer and will not comment on it at this time.
For the price, this game is worth your time, and its flaws are a rare enough occurence that I find them forgivable. I have thusfar run about 8 hours of gameplay on it and am near completion of the Klingon campaign.

Could Have Done Better in 40 Years

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: November 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The fact is there are practically no Star Trek games on the market. So when one is released there is much doubt as to whether it can provide any real satisfaction. Tactical Assault is not what I expected, and it's not really what I wanted in a Star Trek video game.

In itself the game isn't terrible. The graphics are acceptable, the gameplay is sufficient (if not simplistic), and the story demands just enough of your attention. However, it certainly does not live up to its advertisment. It does not offer true 3D space battles. There isn't a great variety of ships to choose from and the missions all feel the same. But I suppose the worst part of this game is that there is no tactical strategy involved. Your objective is to shoot down your enemy's shields while protecting your own. There is no depth, no thought, no creativity here.

If you're a diehard fan, it might be worth a gander. If you're looking for a simple space dogfighting game, you've come to the right place. If you're looking for a sci-fi game which requires strong tactical ability, search elsewhere.

Where's the strategy?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I won't comment on the accuracy of the Star Trek canon in this game but if you are considering purchasing it consider the following: This game is not particularly stragetic in nature, you serve as the captain of a starship and you engage in intergalatic dogfights with multiple allies and multiple bogies. These battles are conducted in a two-dimensional environment rather than a true aerial environment aka there is no vertical plane only horizontal navigation.

Because of the limited engagement environment this game quickly becomes repetitive as you deploy the same "Tactics" over and over (blast the same shield over and over until you can breach their hull). I feel the game would be better served if it lived up the hype on the box by allowing you to create fleets of starships and strategically deploying them, but if you prefer flight simulators this game serves as a reasonable approximation of one.

Disappointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Star Trek franchise makes it's debut on the DS with Tactical Assault, a strategy game that features some interesting elements, but in the end doesn't have enough going for it to truly make it something special. The combat is slow and dull, which is disappointing enough besides the fact that the storyline has less a Star Trek feeling to it. The game boasts about William Shatner's involvement, but you'd hardly know he was here too. There's campaigns to partake in from both the Federation and the Klingons, which is a nice touch (love the use of the Klingon language) and does add some variety to the game, and the combat itself isn't necessarily hard or really all that challenging; it's just drawn out. The graphics look good (the opening cutscene is awesome) and Shatner's voice overs, few as they are, are great, but the repetitive gameplay is what drags Tactical Assault down in both departments as being strategy and Star Trek. It's worth a look for Trekkies and maybe some strategy buffs, but after that, that's it.

Addictive Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After reading the review in Nintendo Power (they gave it a 4 out of 10), I was sceptical about this game. Deciding to give it a chance, I discovered that they really messed up on the rating. As the title implies, this is tactical. For those live action gamers; don't worry. It's not turn based tactics, it's real-time. Rather than flying straight at the enemy and blasting them,though, you have to hit them strategically, and time your shots to lower their shields. After that you have to finish them before they can do the same to you. This concept is incredibly addictive and most space battles are long. The Wireless mode is super fun, blasting your pals as a Klingon ship is always fun. The graphics are pretty nice, too, for a DS game. If you are all graphics, then you wouldn't like this game. But it's been proven that gameplay comes before graphics, and this one scores big time in that category. You are also able to make decisions to avoid conflict and these situations really put your logic and deplomacy to the test. This game is a worthy addition to any collection; especially if you are a Trekkie.

Drawn out and saves die

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Much of the actual function of the game has already been documented and reviewed, so I will be more brief.

The game play is based on communicating, scanning, warping, battle, and upgrades.

Communicating and Scanning are basically the same thing. It's a time sink but if you skip through it quickly, you might miss some detail you need. It's rare, but you never know, so you waste time reading pointless chatter.

Warping replays the same sort of scene each time, so it's a waste of 3 seconds each time.

Battle is all about hitting red alert prior to warping, so your shields are charged. You keep your least damaged part of the shields facing the enemy, and you spin around to fire rear weapons sometimes.

Tactics are contrived. If you pick the wrong ship to attack first, you pretty much die. The AI uses triggers such as damage level of ship X to cause Ship Y and Ship Z to fly away.

Also, you can't see much around you when you have an enemy selected. Invariably, you spend the entire battle flying in a big circle to keep your shields lined up right. Very often, this leads to crashing into a planet, asteroid, or starbase. There's no warning, just BAM "We can't survive this level of damage much longer, captain." then BOOM.

Sometimes, you're three warps into a mission, and you are heavily damaged. You have to park and wait for your emergency power to regenerate, because when you warp in, your shields will regen 20%, but your emergency power will not. If you forget leave the DS to regen shields, you can't have it folded up.

The saving grace for the game are upgrades. You can pick how to improve your ship by allocating earned points, based on mission completion rating, towards your crew. Sometimes, it's hard to figure out the right upgrades to get, but it's the addictive part of the game.

But, don't let that convince you to buy it. If you forget that you left it regenerating emergency power, and the DS powers off for low battery; or a child finds the DS and pulls out the game; or you have to turn the DS off in the middle of a mission...

...THEN IT WILL ERASE ALL STATS FOR YOUR PLAYER.

In other words, you don't just lose the mission you're at, but you go back to it being a brand new game. This happenned three times before I finally gave up.

This is an unacceptable problem with the game.

Nice try, but too hard.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 22
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Only get this game if you like the feeling of wanting to smash your DS into tiny little pieces.

For Star Trek Fans only

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was given this game by a friend who didnt like it..now Ive never watched star trek or know anything about it but hey...i wont turn down a free game. i found it to be very confusing. i barely played it so i odnt know how the gameplay is...but it's only for a trek fan not for an rpg/action gamer like myself.

"tactical" is in the title, not "strategic"

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First, I'd like to comment on some of the other comments: This is a game of tactics, not strategy!! Although some may use the word "strategy" when describing your plan of attack in battle, that is inaccurate. Tactics are all about dogfighting and close quarters, strategy is about larger troop or fleet locations not the actual individual engagments.
With that said i do like the game. I haven't yet completed the federation campaign nor have played in multiplayer mode (I wish more games had the ability to play multiplayer with one game cartridge only!). I do wish this game had three demensions, but it doesn't, and I enjoy it as it was made. I do wish there were more options and or some type of experience points, or so many other things. This game is not "Armada". Definetly worth purchasing if you are a fan of Trek. And by the way...Kirk is not in command as the game description indicates. The game is about all new characters that you are able to develop as each mission is completed. My only complaint is that you are awarded only one upgrade credit for a "good" mission and two credits for an "excellent" mission. I wish I could replay some of those "good" missions in order to achieve an excellent rating in order to help me out with later missions. Currently I feel out gunned and out manuevered. I've played the same mission more than a dozen times and can't survive! Maybe I'm just not geeky enough to be a game wizard.

Decent for a handheld version

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was hoping to finally have a handheld version of "Starfleet Command" from the PC, and I got it... sort of. The "feel" of the game is very similar, but a lot of the extra goodies that really differentiated between ships and races got streamlined out. No drones, no tractors, none of the race-specific exotic weapons, and only Federation or Klingon to choose from. All right, enough bashing. The controls are good and the action is fast. All in all very entertaining, if a little simpler than I would have liked, and a must for die-hard Trek fans.

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