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Categories: Review
Tags: star trek, strategy, xbox 360
A renegade Vulcan is bent on imposing logical order on the universe. Her name is T’Uerell and her scheme spans hundreds of years, playing the Federation against their deadliest foes. Fifteen missions, five for each of the Star Trek eras, find Captains Archer, Kirk, and Picard drawn into her web. It will take the full might of Federation (or, at least the four ships under your command) to save the galaxy (again).
Star Trek: Legacy is the third of three Bethesda-backed Trek games which hit during the 40th anniversary year. Initially the most ambitious, Legacy limped out of the stardock after a handful of delays, making a disastrous arrival on PC. The 360 version soon followed and proved the PC owners right–the PC version is a bad port of a good 360 game with some problems (no in-mission saves being a big one). While PC gamers enjoy the commercial beta, here’s what 360 owners can expect.
Star Trek: Legacy puts the player in charge of a command ship (usually one of the Enterprises). Up to three ships follow your lead, together engaging in real-time combat. Falling somewhere between the arcade Encounters and the SFC-reminiscent Tactical Assault, Legacy offers simplified, but exciting space combat. Power management, fleet commands, and subsystem targeting allow for strategy, but simply acquiring a phaser/photon torpedo lock and blasting away works, too.
The single-player campaign is built around combat–an escort mission finds you fighting off Romulan attackers and assaulting an outpost, while defending medical ships, hailing plague-ridden planets, beaming the sick to your ship, and ferrying them to medical aid. Command points are earned by completing missions, and can be spent on new ships before the next mission starts. Regrettably, you can’t spend points to improve the ships you already own.
While Legacy plays up the fleet aspect, I found that the ships I wasn’t directly controlling did their own thing. Basic fleet commands, like “guard this target” and “patrol this area,” are non-existent. Frankly, the only commands I had success with were “attack my target” and “warp here.” Any real fleet coordination involved my taking command of each ship individually and issuing orders.
The game seldom looks this good.Legacy has an interesting grasp of the laws of physics. The game plays out from the perspective of a camera which follows your ship (and you can swing it around all you like). Each mission map is 3D and it takes a drastic change in altitude to force the “leaving mission area” message. However, if you pull the throttle back to climb, your ship sticks to a 90-degree climb instead of looping around in true 3D. Sure, loop de loops aren’t Trek, but neither is stalling out.
Space is just full of stuff, too. There are missions which are just lousy with planets. But don’t worry about crashing, you just bounce off obstacles (and other ships). I’m sure this is the answer to poor AI pathfinding (warping around a level can be a nightmare), but it completely negates the psychological effects of Ramming Speed!
When it comes to visuals, Legacy is good, but not next-gen. Ship models are detailed enough to annoy Trekkers with their inaccuracies and damage effects are convincing—save for the explosions. In a game like this, explosions should have been a priority, but ships simply break apart into chunks.
Audio is another disappointment, if only for not living up to its potential. The five captains return in this game, but a pre-DS9 Sisko (Avery Brooks) barely makes a cameo and Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) assists during the Picard missions, but isn’t playable. The lion’s share of the voice work falls on Scott Bakula, William Shatner, and Patrick Stewart. Stewart is the stand out, but he also has the most voiceover experience. Bakula’s fine, but Shatner sounds like he’s narrating, not acting.
The Borg Cube wants to play Geometry Wars.Beyond the single-player campaign, Legacy stands on shakier ground. There’s no way to replay specific missions, so unlocking those extra Achievements requires another play through. There’s a skirmish mode which lacks detailed customization–you can set the parameters and select your own fleet, but you can’t select the opposing AI’s fleet. The lack of historical battles is either foolish or insulting, especially since a Wrath of Khan battle was shown at E3. And there’s no split-screen multiplayer, which is a damn shame since it’s easier to find someone on the couch than someone hosting a game. Not that multiplayer is that great anyway–there are only two modes: deathmatch and onslaught. You’d think with tractor beams, capture the flag would be obvious.
If I hadn’t been lurking around the official site, my review would end here, with a tight, witty conclusion, and with some catchy, viral phrase that would take the Internet in a “Jump, Gypsy!” storm.
It’s great that story co-developer Derek Chester (legendary Trek and Legacy writer Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana’s partner) is active on Bethesda’s Legacy boards to answer questions about story elements, but I really wish he would stop saying things like “rendered cinematics were cut from the game,” “it wasn’t presented the way we had envisioned,” and “the storyline is in pieces.” What does Chester mean when he says, “Wouldn’t it be great to make a killer Star Trek game … with a team like Quicksilver, Valve or Raven?” I was fine thinking that Star Trek: Legacy was imperfect; I preferred not knowing that imperfection was a business decision.