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"Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor, not a video game reviewer!"

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I like Star Trek. I really do. But I am not one whom you would describe as a rabid Trekkie. I know enough on the subject of Star Trek to make me somewhat knowledgeable on certain facts; Even-numbered Star Trek movies are the best ones, guys in red shirts invariably die anytime they beam onto a planet, and Captain Kirk would kick Captain Picard's tush in a pitched fight clear across the Great Barrier. But again, I'm not a rabid fan, so when my brother picked this game up for his X-box 360 I was only moderately interested in it. I played it over this past week and have come to the conclusion that the game, while fun, is not as good as it could have been.

ST: Legacy wants to be epic, but only partially succeeds there. Individuals and fans of all Star Trek related shows will love the pure dedication that has been given to the ships, who are clearly the stars of this game. Players embark on their trek (pun intended) during the Enterprise series time frame with Captain Archer and the gang up through the post-TNG era. The plot follows the protaganists of the various series in their pursuit of a rogue Vulcan intent on introducing her own brand of the Borg into the Alpha Quadrant over the course of 200 years. The plot seemed a little weak to me, especially considering the visuals that are included in the game, and seemed little more than a vehicle to introduce the starships themselves.

The graphics are impressive, as is the ship selection. Be forewarned that if you're looking to hop into the controls of a Romulan Warbird in the story campaign you'll only find that in the Skirmish or Multiplayer modes. I noticed that many of the TOS series ships seemed to be pulled directly from Starfleet Battles, like the little Apollo Class scout ship, which consists solely of a saucer section and a single warp nacelle slung underneath. The ships themselves are beautifully rendered and match that of what you saw on the screen of all the movies. Every sound effect from the hum of the impulse engines to the unique sound of the phasers has been dutifully implemented into the game. And the larger the ship is, the less agile it is, giving you more reason to put a few Miranda or Steamrunner class ships in your fleet. The little ships are definitely the most fun but it will be the big battleships that you end up using to win, using brute force.

The music is fine, and certainly more than adequate to set the mood. Some of it seemed to be recycled a bit through most of the game a bit too much though. The voice acting was also adequate but I couldn't help shake the feeling that the voice actors themselves, more or less, just phoned in 30 lines apiece and collected their paycheck. There was no real feeling behind the words being spoken, and it was particularly noticeable with Shatner's Kirk, who is supposedly having some sort of blood feud with this rogue Vulcan but speaks about it in the same tone of voice one would use reading the annual earnings report of a mid-size toilet paper company.

The controls are a big detraction from the game and that is just the plain truth. Through the 20 odd hours I spent playing the game I was never really able to figure out at times which button did what. The left thumbpad controls motion, the right the view, while the bumpers and various buttons control everything from energy settings, hailing, scanning, selecting the closest enemy, initiating repairs, etc. And I'm not even including the weapons fire buttons. Furthermore if you have the ability to target individual subsystems on an enemy ship (sensors, engines, etc.) then please tell me how to do that. My brother has played through the game twice on increasingly difficult settings and said he didn't know either and usually elected to just continue firing and blow up the enemy ship. You'll find yourself repeatedly hitting the wrong button in the middle of a fight and about the only one I was 100% sure of at any time was the warp button, which coincidentally is one of the most tempermental ship subsystems on this game as it will quizically work only half the time.

Despite the controls the game is, as I said earlier, quite beautiful. Watching your fleet exchange broadsides with a Borg Cube is really breathtaking and seeing so many types of ships made available to the player is wonderful. I do not have X-Box Live, so I could not engage in a multiplayer battle with anyone, but did tinker with the Skirmish mode for a while. And here I found the single biggest detraction yet. Skirmish mode reminds me a great deal of another great game, X-Wing Alliance. Players don't cooperate on pre-made missions but rather use an editor to "build" a fleet from scratch and then send it towards another fleet. That's fine and dandy but I want to relive the epic space battle of STII: The Wrath of Khan (and who doesn't?), or take part in the giganto space battle over the Earth from ST: First Contact. Heck, even the battle of Wolf 359 would have been welcome. You'll find none of that here and it makes me sad since all the necessary shipsets are there and are obviously begging for it. Another quick note is that collisions should be catastrophic events for any ship but here ships bounce off of each other, planets, asteroids, and a host of other objects without once taking any damage. A "Worf Maneuver" style assault, warping your ship right into the side of a Borg cube for instance, would have been a most welcome weapon to have at one's disposal, especially on the last (very hard) mission of the game.

The game is pretty enough to perhaps warrant playing through it again, and maybe getting to try it out with some more of the smaller ships. But other than that I don't see much replay value in the Campaign mode. This is further hampered with no scenarios to play and a very spartan Skirmish mode. Overall this is a good, solid game but with some flaws attached to it that drag the overall score down. I enjoyed it a great deal and heartily recommend it to Star Trek fans who have ever had a hankering to pilot their own Sovereign class starship at will.

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