Star Trek: Armada

Rating:
Summary: Space Combat in 2 Dimensions...Anyone for Homeworld?
Review: Do not even assume for a moment that Star Trek: Armada has any resemblance to Relic's Homeworld, the two are about as closely related as Woody Allen is to Arnold Schwarzengger. First off, it has the longest install process of any game I have ever played, and I have a 48x CD-ROM drive. Second, the interface is monstrous, even though it looks elegant and simple. While positioning ships is easy, (and it should be since they only move in 2 dimensions), there is no real sense of scale, plus they have a tendency to 'bump' into objects like space stations and other ships. Secondly, the instant they see an enemy ship, any vessel you control within weapons' range automatically opens fire, taking interaction down a notch. Also unlike Homeworld the user cannot assign formations to his ships, making dispersement messy.

When the game starts the user is treated to a rather nicely rendered opening scene with lots of fleet action between Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg vessels that culminates on an all-out run on Borg Cubes. (Though one wonders how Picard can face down Locutus since they are the same guy. Did the Borg clone Picard?) Unfortunately, the game doesn't deliver anywhere near the excitement generated by a 3 minute opening segue. At the title screen you have a choice to play a series of missions as either the Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg and they all must be played before arriving at the finale mission. Overall, the game seems to have been slapped together to capitalize on the franchise, lacking both the quality and substance that LucasArts has put into their Star Wars line of games. Armada lacks the epic scope of similar games like Homeworld or even Starcraft. If you changed the space scapes to ground and the starships to Zerg or Protoss units, Armada would be Starcraft, except not as much fun.

Armada prolongs the Star Trek game curse when it should have shattered it. The prospect of moving a fleet of Defiant and Sovereign class starships around the screen should have been an easy game to create. Perhaps if Activision had optioned the Homeworld engine for Armada, things would have been different. However, on the upside, the rendered starships do look nice, as does the 3D lighting for all of the effects shots. Getting Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, and Denise Crosby to do voices will probably get die-hard Trek fans to purchase the game to feed their pirana-like frenzy for franchise merchandise, but style should never win out over substance in a game like this. There is very little meat to this game.

Do yourself a favor, power up your warp engines and get away from this title, as fast as you can.

Rating:
Summary: Best for trekers
Review: I bought the game and then I could not use it for a couple of days due to my video chipset was not compliant, but the patch was already on the net to download. I am running this on a 500mhz,128mb,20gb,19"mon. and it runs fine. I took the game to work and ran it on a computer that was near the system requirements 200mhz,64mb,2gb,17"mon. (except no 3D accelator) and it drops almost all the detail in graphics (which makes it kinda ugly).

As far as Star Trek video games go, I liked this one the best because you can be more creative and control the game the way you think the game should be played (kinda). I gave this five stars because I am a big star trek fan and I love command and conquer which is like this game, so I get the best of both areas.

Final point. If you are a hard core gamer and don't care anything about star trek then maybe download the demo(70mb) to tryout first. But if you are a star trek fan and like video games this is a sure winner. (p.s. make sure your computer exceedes the min. requirements)

Rating:
Summary: AI is...stupid, but the missions are nice...
Review: Well, it's...true that the computer is pretty dumb. You can tell that it's following a script, and thus play in a way that it doesnt expect. Basically it'll continue it's strategy of attacking your base even as you take out its expansions. Not a very fun way to play a game.

Then again, the missions are still challenging. The story line is absolutely awesome, and is one of the more compelling features of the game. Cinematics are breathtaking as well.

Online games are pretty fun just as long as you dont lag, and luckily the multiplayer games are chuck full of options (much better setup than Starcraft).

A word of warning. You probably will not get this game to run on your first install. You're going to have to get the patch, and all the latest drivers and pray that that will be enought to play...

Rating:
Summary: Pretty to look at...however...
Review: My first impression of this game was "Wow. Gorgeous. Amazing." In all fairness, this game is very nice to look at; all the ships look fantastic, as do the environments (although none of the ships are sized to scale; as a Borg fan, this bothered me a bit). However, there were a lot of problems...first of all, all the races are pretty similar in how they function...second, the game shipped with an absurd number of bugs (although there is a patch that fixes most of these now). The AI presents no challenge whatsoever, and the game gets very old very, very quickly. I cannot recommend this one for hardcore RTS fans...this game will be a breeze, and there really isn't anything 'new' here...you will tire of it quickly. The only people I can recommend this to are hardcore Star Trek fans, who will love the graphical interface (note that Multiplayer is actually pretty entertaining when you toss a couple more thinking opponents into the mix).

Rating:
Summary: bad
Review: this game is awufal. it has loads of bugs, and gets slow towards the end of it. There are very few units also. I have had it for 3 days, and i am already board. Also the AI is really bad. I need to play on the hardest setting, and it is still easy. If you want a better game for less price, then buy Starcraft.

Rating:
Summary: Would like to play the game but...
Review: I bought this game as soon as it hit the shelves. I tried to play it but it wouldn't work. I didn't have a 3D accelerator. So I bought one just for use in this game. Then it wouldn't work because I didn't have a good enough CD-Rom drive. It wasn't able to read all the info on the disk. Why would a company make a game that to be played someone has to buy almost a whole new computer.

Rating:
Summary: At last! A merely satisfactory Star Trek game...
Review: This is a game that the Star Trek subgenre could've used about two years ago, but as it is now, it's too little, too late. Yes, it's more, ahem, engaging than your average Star Trek game, but it does nothing to improve upon the strategy genre as a whole. As such, like most Star Trek games, it can only really be recommended for Star Trek fans.

Having said that, if you're unfamiliar with the strategy genre, you will find this to be an enjoyable enough starting point. The graphics are great, the sounds lush, the cinematics impressive, and the vocal talent appropriately star-filled. For the novice to intermediate strategist, the game's AI and missions are enough to occupy the senses as you get the idea of the genre.

But, as has been remarked before, if you *have* played strategy games before, it feels like you're merely playing a buggy version of _Age of Empires_ in space.

Despite having installed the first update patch, the game still quits unexpectedly. It also doesn't work very well at all with multiple-monitor systems, failing to stop mouse movement at the edge of the playing screen. In fact, the whole mouse movement is awkward. After fiddling endlessly with the mouse control option, it seems to me that there is just some kind of small programming flaw; it doesn't scroll particularly smoothly, regardless of setting. It's not that the flaw is enough to make the game unplayable, it's just that it's difficult sometimes to move with precision. Which brings up another point: perspective. There's something about the angle at which units and objects are placed that makes it difficult to see as much of the playing field as you want at one time. There's so much empty space in the game, by definition, that, in order to see everything, you really need to be 'pulled back' more than the game allows.

Still, there's hope that much of this will be solved by additional patches. Clearly there's enthusiasm for the product amongst the Star Trek community, and Activision has already serviced this community with one patch. More will undoubtedly be forthcoming, and the game might well work itself into stability.

Of course, the larger point is that _Starcraft_ and _Age of Empires II_ (among others) are already stable, challenging, and popular among multiplayer communities. Many people will therefore think that it might well be worth skipping this satisfactory game for one that truly excels.

Rating:
Summary: This Game Rocks!
Review: Alright heres the skiny... THIS GAME KICKS A$$. It combines the best elements from some of the most succesful RTS games out there. It has Graphics better than TA, the replayablity and species diversity of Star Craft, unit balancement of Age of Empires, and the unique research tree of Home World. All of these great atributes combined with a great spell casting system make this game one of the best RTS's out there (even for non-trekkers).

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and engrossing gameplay but buggy
Review: As a long suffering Star Trek fan who wishes that not almost every ST PC game turns out to be a stinker, I am glad to report that this game turned out to be playable. Like Blizzard's Starcraft, you control each of the 4 major ST: Next Generation races in turn (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg), solving a series of liked scenarios for each, all linked through a common storyline. I'd wait until a patch was available before buying it though. If the bugs were fixed, I'd rate it a 4-star.

The good parts: The graphics are really terrific, with smooth animation and effects that really add to the game. Several different unique ships for each race, each with its own special abilities. The ability to capture enemy ships and facilities. The campaign scenarios are varied and interesting. The game interface is simple and user-friendly.

The bad parts: The campaign is really short, the AI is none too bright and the game has some serious stability problems (crashed on starting, crashed on saving, crashed on loading).

Rating:
Summary: Would have been a cool game expect.
Review: Start, play for five minutes, then CRASH. Norton SystemWorks couldn't handle those. I hope they have patches soon.