tag_1234's Full Review: Star Trek: Armada for Windows
Ah yes its about time someone bought rights for a decent Star Trek game. Activision did a wonderful job despite some problems, most of them bugs.
Initial impressions:
I love Star Trek and really wanted this game to work. I rarely buy a game by looking at the box but this one looked great graphically and fun as anything. As I popped the CD in I was taken back to "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space 9". The movie preview blew me away and I was almost foaming at the mouth in anticipation game. As I started up single player mode the game froze. I ended up getting very familiar with the manual restart function on my computer.
Minimum System requirements, direct from the box to you:
200 MHz with 3D graphics card, 266 P-2 or greater without a card
32 MBs of ram (64 recommended and needed in my opinion)
600 MBs of disk space
4 MB video memory
4x CD drive
Mouse
The Campaigns
The single player version of the game is made up of campaigns for each of the four playable races. In each you have a set of goals (such as build something, avoid being destroyed, protect a base etc etc.). The game starts out very easy and quickly becomes a challenging experience. The storyline fits in nicely with the classic storyline and gives the user a real reason to play.
Starcraft 2?
When I bought this game I was hoping for something more reminiscent of Master of Orion (an empire building game). What I got was really a Starcraft takeoff. This game is Real-Time Strategy involving buildings, generic ships (although the naming is nice and unique). In most missions you create a base, amass a force to defend and attack and repel or destroy enemy forces. While the game does offer some refreshing new ground it looks like the developers copied and pasted lots from the Starcraft concept (one example is "Ion Storm" which is a copy of Psy Storm from Starcraft). Anyway, despite these annoying similarities, the game offers lots of fun in single player mode as well as requiring some skill later on.
Miss that Technobabble?
Ah yes, considering the only active Star Trek series is Voyager Trekkies are finding it harder and harder to satisfy the craving. This game is by no means a dumbed down. The campaigns offer a good continuation after DS9 and various normal features continue (Clinton hierarchy troubles etc etc.) Various gibberish also resurfaces as everything becomes a transditic something or other.
Graphics
Graphically this game is almost two in one, as single and multi-player differ tremendously. The only graphical item they share is a small screen that shows an alternate 3D view. This view is a bit distracting but is well done and better than a blank space.
Single Player Graphics
In campaign mode everything looks wonderful, exactly like on the box unlike so many others. Cut scenes are typical of the initial movie and are insanely well done for the large number that exist. Talking (visually) in cut scenes could have been handled better but doesn't distract much from them. Lighting and ship movement are superb; its almost like you're looking in from above an actual episode. Nebulas and other backgrounds are quite decently done (heavy on the nebula) and the game generally looks great. Ships move like one would expect them to and weapons fire is almost beautiful as well as destructive.
Multi-Player Graphics
Despite the near perfection of single player graphics multi-player got left behind. Ship movement is jumpy at best, background quality is degraded and things generally look worse. This is to help with lag from multi-player play but detracts greatly from the game. Its a no contest between this and the flexible Starcraft for multi-player.
Sound
The background music in this game seems to be taken directly from Star Trek movies and shows. If you enjoy that kind of music you'll love the effect it creates. If you're not a fan of such music you may have some problems with it. It worked for me. Speech throughout the game was handled well (verbally that is). They have Jean Luc, Worf and other talent sound almost as good as on the show and the generic voices are about at the Starcraft standard.
Complexity
This game will keep anyone who relishes a good challenge busy. You can play the game in a superficial way, creating ships and fighting with them till they die. The more experienced player will find all sorts of modes, options and other things to make their ships more powerful. Special abilities of ships as well as the ability to take over other ships offer require lots of skill to master. Despite this almost every player has a fighting chance, even if it may seem overwhelming.
Options
This game is riddled with options in Multi-player. One can set forces, add computer opponents (along with setting their difficulty), change map settings, set technology levels and do many other surface level changes. Despite this map options are a bit barren as you cannot create your own maps.
Overly Balanced races?
Perhaps this is just the nature of the game but I found the races very similar. Does it seem like the Klingons and Romulans should have almost identical build structures, ship classes, equally powerful specials and just about everything else perfectly distributed? Not in my book! All four races have identical ship classes and fairly even special abilities. The races do offer a small amount of variety but its nothing like Starcraft or other similar games.
Multi-player (online)
This game includes free internet play that is very similar to battle.net. In addition to providing a standard game matchmaking service they also offer a few standard perks. Different channels, and all other general options await you. Lag seems to have been minimized (as a result of the poorer graphics). In the few games I played online only one person "lagged out" which is normally a product of a disconnection. No one simply had less bandwidth than required.
AI
The AI of this game can be set to several difficulties and offers some challenge at any level. After waxing an easy level opponent my first time playing I set it on a medium level. I prepared for a long drawn out battle and was very unhappy with the little attacks they used. After a good time they came with the ultimate attack and took out all of my defensive structures. 6 seconds later they came with a massive assault. This AI is really well done.
The big problem
The one major problem that I have with this game is the unpredictability. Especially during cut scenes the game likes to freeze up. I've had to manually reboot my machine (which can cause major harm) far too often (although the problems are almost nonexistent in multi-player). Its really annoying when a mission needs to be redone because the cut scene freezes.
Overall
If you don't mind rebooting and want a good single player game this is a wonderful choice. If you're a Trekkie this game is a great continuance of the series and won't disappoint. Multi-player is a bit dismal but is still entertaining. This is a fairly solid choice despite the horrible freezes.
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