Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Conquest

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Conquest is a very simple strategy game based in the Star Trek universe. Combat uses a rough "paper-rock-scissors" method for ship battles (Dreadnaughts beat cruisers, cruisers beat scouts, and scouts do a disproportionate amounts of damage to Dreadnaughts). Players can only control up to three "fleets" at any given time, each fleet being a focus for attack and defense on the galactic map gameboard. There are only two resources to worry about: credits (gained from mines) and research points (provided by research stations). If you've played any modern strategy game (such as Warcraft III or Tiberium War), you'll be able to understand ST: Conquest in no time... and probably get bored with the strategy elements just as quickly.

Where Star Trek: Conquest hooks players is in the "Arcade" mode of combat. While battles can be resolved instantly by the computer, those willing to test their reflexes will be rewarded with a fast-paced 3rd-Person view ship combat game that many will find addicting. Using the Wii nunchaku to steer and the Wii remote to shoot, players can take control of one of the ships in their fleet during battles. Commanding a starship takes some skill, because different shields cover the four sides of your ship (forward, aft, port, starboard) - if you always circle opponents in a clockwise direction, you will quickly find your starboard shields depleted while the others are at full strength. Enemy ships face similar problems, so you have to carefully choose when and where you fire your weapons.

Star Trek: Conquest would have been a "can't miss" title for the Wii if it had included some form of multiplayer. It is still exciting as a single player game, but its simplicity results in it becoming an "occasion play" game rather quickly. Star Trek fans looking for the definitive ship combat game will be extremely disappointed with Conquest, but those looking for a fun experience in the Star Trek universe will be pleasantly surprised.

It looks like serious amends were made in response to Legacy: Conquest has been drastically dunned down into a lovable arcade/respectably strategic console title. The simplification of this recent Star Trek franchise might be both its greatest strength and weakness. The learning curve of this game is low. Spending ten minutes with the controls is more than enough time to learn the basics and experience some real enjoyment, and given another hour one can master the physics and clash with the best of them. Conversely, this might rush some players into boredom too quickly, but with real differences among the races' attributes every campaign can bring some entertaining challenge. The arcade mode is restricted to a single plane of movement, and ship movement is quite intuitive with the Wii nunchuck. Aiming is a breeze with the remote and makes up for some depth in gameplay lost by the one plane restriction. The tactical aspect is nicely balanced, not overly complex, but having enough options to make it seem of some consequence. Resources, research, and fortification, thats about it. As mentioned, the differences among the species are noticeable and more depth is recovered in adapting to enemy advantages/disadvantages and battle behavior. My only complaint with Conquest is the complete lack of camera control. The screenshots out there are real and pretty, but you won't be getting that close to the action with exception to the opening cuts before each battle. Granted the given angle is ideal for gameplay, trekkies do love to indulge in the grandeur of their starships. Still, the game remains highly entertaining and supremely addictive (especially if you're a fan). At thirty bucks you can't go wrong, its a blast.

I just got this game yesterday and I love it! It's very simple and easy to learn. There are a couple non-intuitive things but they're easily overcome.

It's a great space galactic strategy but really simplified so you can do the fun stuff. There's resource management but you don't waste a lot of time doing it. You either have a Starbase, Spacedock, or you don't. You have a mining station or a research thing or you don't. And you have turrets or you don't.

The battle mode is a lot of fun too. And even with the limited features, it actually requires strategy and planning to do well at this game. I got whopped in campaign mode the first couple times until I got the hang of what you need to do on the galactic level.

Great game. The only drawback that lead me to take off a star is the lack of a multiplayer mode. It wouldn't have been hard. Especially with the wii. Star Trek Encounters did it fine. This would have been really fun with multiplayer. I hope there's a downloadable patch to allow that or to play online at some point.

this is just simply fun to play. it is a game that you can go back to and it will be fresh. not very predictable and anything can happen. keeps you coming back for more. i was pleasantly surprised! better than i thought it was going to be

Don't be fooled by the three stars. Although this title is budget, poorly themed, and very simple as turn based strategy goes, there's a lot of fun of to be had here. This review is designed to tell you how the game mechanics work. Other reviews cover everything else pretty well.

There are 3 different battle options, the Arcade mode which lets you control your ships in battle in a very simple 2D battlefield, where you target enemies with your IR pointer (that I like) and A or B for phasers or photons, and steer your ship with the analog. Alternatively you can do Simulation mode, where the computer calculates the results but still allows you to make some choices as the battle wages on (you can choose offensive or defensive posturing--which presumably strengthens weapons or shields respectively via the D-pad), but interaction is limited, or you can choose the Instant battle mode, where the computer does the calculations and instantly shows you the results with zero interaction from you. You don't have to use the same battle mode throughout a game, you can pick and choose which you want to use at the beginning of every battle.

You can only build 3 fleets of up to 7 ships, with 3 types of ships (each of 6 races has 3 race specific ships assigned to categories "scout", "Cruiser" and "dreadnought") varying in handling, shield, weapons and hull strengths, 2 types of starbase (which vary in hull/shield/weapon strength and their regen bonus for your ships in that sector), and either a mining or research station. Each sector has a different resource contribution, and the mine or research station either adds a resource multiplier for more cash, or adds some multiple of that sectors resource to your research goals. Research goals can increase mining efficiency, increase research efficiency, increase speed, turning or handling of ships, or decrease fleet-building costs. Both starbases and resource stations can be reinforced with a weapons platform for an extra defensive bonus.

Finally, your research also contributes to a "superweapon" which charges over the course of several turns. The genesis weapon does damage to any sector you target, there's a healing device that regenerates your fleet's health so you don't have to let them sit or retreat to regen, and then there's some sort of travel weapon (Klingons can jump one fleet to any sector in one turn, federation can cut off one sector from it's surrounding sectors for one turn, the others I don't know).

Each fleet you build needs an admiral. You can build one that gets and offensive bonus, one that gets a defensive bonus, and one that gets a movement bonus (more than one sector per move). Admirals gain experience RPG-style and their bonuses increase until their fleets are destroyed. You can only build one of each admiral (you cannot build all 3 fleets with offensive bonuses), and when one is destroyed, you can rebuild that admiral's fleet only in your home sector. You can add ships to existing fleets anywhere you have a starbase, and you can build starbases in any sector.

That should give you a basic idea of the level of strategy involved here. Even playing out of the box on easy I managed to have a good time with it, but I also bought my copy on sale. I'd probably hesitate to shell out the what Bethesda wants for the Wii version when their PS2 version sells for half that.

Star Trek: Conquest is a good little game if you're looking for a bit of strategy and like beating the crap out of all the different alien races in the Star Trek universe. It's essentially Star Trek Risk as one builds fleets and conquers planets until you control the entire board.

Obviously if you are someone looking for an intellectual Trek game, Conquest isn't for you, but if you like seeing Jem'Hadar battleships blowing up or want to fly around some Breen cruisers and take over Romulus, then you'll probably like this game.

The game as a good initial replay value as playing as each of the 6 different races each has their own challenges (I found playing as the Breen especially difficult). However, after a while the thinness of the gameplay becomes apparent as every turn turns into taking a system, building a starbase and a mining facility there, replacing any ships you might have lost, making sure that none of the computer-run races are about to run in and invade your space, and doing it over.

And that is why I say that it may not be worth the $[...]. If I hadn't received this as a gift, I probably would be a little upset that I didn't wait until I saw this in the bargin bin before picking it up because of it's thinness. However, it still turns out to be a reasonably fun blow-em-up game nevertheless.

I am a 40 yo man and remember playing pong on the atari system, so keep that in mind. I first played this game and got my a** kicked so many times I stopped playing and let it collect dust for 6 months. About 3-weeks ago I picked it up again and tried it out , now I love it and I'll tell you why- the reason I couldn't win was because I didn't know that when you are in arcade mode if you press the up + button all your ship will follow your lead and shoot the same target. After about an 1.5 hours I was able to beat the game with all 5 races on hard. Game over right ? Wrong ! I took a page out of the novel "Enders Game", highly recommended BTW, and imposed more more restrictions on what I could do. First I beat the game with 2 fleets (3 max), then with one fleet, then with no dreadnoughts, then with no cruisers. I was finally able to beat the game using 1 fleet of scouts ( with each race) with no "power-ups" only income, the stategic difficulty increases considerably, any reviews suggesting this game is simple should give it try. Now that I have put every restriction I could think of in place and won , I probably will not play it again, at least for a very long time. I got 3-weeks of great gameplay from this title. Is it Star Trek ? Not really but with familiar ships, races ect. Will it change your life ? Nope but it is fun the challage yourself. 4.5 stars.

I purchased this for my brother-in-law. He is a HUGE Star Trek fan. I was hesitant to buy it because of the mediocre reviews. However, he LOVED it! He practically sat in front of the TV playing this game for the remainder of his visit. His kids and my kids sometimes played along. They discussed strategy and shared advice/ideas. I don't know why this game has received some less-than-stellar reviews. I also don't know why it is rated E-10. There is no blood or graphic violence that I saw. You just blow up space ships - and they're not very "real" looking space ships at that. I recommend this game for Star Trek fans (Trekies?). My brother-in-law could barely put the remote down to have conversation with other adults!

This is a single player game of 4X: eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, eXterminate.
I happen to like 4X games.

The good: this game plays well, looks smooth, feels smooth, simple controls, easy to learn, difficulty starts low enough, very pretty.

The bad: 3 fleets, all ships in those three fleets, no control over admiral types for those fleets, only three classes of ships.

The odd: This is the only game I own which causes my Wii to overheat! Also, three different ways to resolve combat: Sim, a typical civ-game style shots-fly side-to-side and feel the simulated dice underlying the code, with limited player input (stance only); Instant, a more brutal but much faster and 0 stance input; and Arcade, where one is controlling the flagship in a decent tactical game. You get to pick which method for each generated battle.

The Ugly: The races really don't feel that different, and there are only 6 in campaign mode (8 in tactical scenarios). Map uses warp-links that restrict movement tightly; feels more like vorKosiverse or Starfire than Star Trek.

What it is missing: variety of ships, ability to have ships outside the assigned fleets, ability to have more than three admirals and thus three fleets. It really doesn't tie well to the source; this would have been better without the Star Trek theme; the theme is pretty darned well pasted on. It would help to see more of the tactical field in arcade mode.

Worth the $15 I paid for it... I got 20 hours of play before going cold on it.

This game is a lot of fun. Controls take a little practice, but once you got it, it's really easy. It's fun to play as different races, shoot up other ships, and build facilities and fleets. If you lose some ground on turns, it doesn't really make you mad, instead, it enables you to learn from your mistakes and do things better the next time.