Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Legacy

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I've played just about every Star Trek game on the market (Bridge Commander, Starfleet Command series, Star Trek Armada series, Dominion Wars, Star Trek Encounters, Star Trek Tactical Assault, Klingon, DS9 the Fallen, Elite Force, etc....) and I haven't quite found one that gives me what've wanted until now. Bridge Commander + Starfleet Command were the closest. This game worked for me because it felt like I was replaying a fleet battle from the TV series- where I can enjoy the tactical elements and the spectacular 3D ship-to-ship battle graphics.

This game is at its best when it requires you to develop a strategy, such as splitting your fleet apart to tackle multiple things simultaneously, requiring you to use the tactical map and fleet controls.

E.g. I had to locate bases that were creating drones that were poisoning the sector. So I dispatch all ships to all planets to locate all the bases. Then I pair up the ships so that one pair (the battleships) goes to each station to destroy them, while the remaining pair (cruisers) seeks out and dispatches the drones. Then eventually on the final station I consolidate the entire fleet for the final assault. Keeping fleet sizes to a maximum of 4 gives the game a light-weight command and conquer flavor but yet still gives you needed control of the helm so you can execute the satisfying kills. I find myself using the tactical display alot to maintain awareness. Then i have to switch to ship view to make sure each ship is targeting the right enemy.

Here are the negatives I found:

The missions can last about 30 minutes and there are no save points in between. So if you die, you're screwed. That's not been too bad because the tactical elements let you try a different strategy the second time.

The controls appear difficult at first. It took me about an hour to get used to them. But once you've mastered the fleet controls the game takes on a far more interesting dimension than a mindless slug fest.

3-space control can get wacky, so your best bet is to target enemies and allow the computer to do most of the flying so you can just worry about firing the torpoedoes and phasers.

I waited for this game to come out for months and I really, really wanted to love it. I held out until I beat the game so I could give it a fair review. Overall, it's an entertaining and fun game that's plagued with some serious problems. It looks like Bethesda spent most of their budget on getting Shatner, Brooks, Stewart etc to do the voice-overs rather than hiring good story writers and game testers.

Probably the biggest problem I have with it has nothing to do with the actual game play. The game's writers took WAY too many liberties with established Star Trek lore. I know that games aren't considered part of the Star Trek "canon" but it's irresponsible to the franchise and just plain bad writing to have James T. Kirk chasing the Borg. Some of the missions' story lines are just plain ridiculous and more often than not, when I beat a mission I was left scratching my head saying to myself "That's it? I beat it?" They had the resources, the actors and the access to some of the greatest stories in science fiction to make an awesome game -- and they squandered it.

They had access to Avery Brooks (Capt. Sisko from DS9), they had DS9 and the USS Defiant rendered and dozens of Klingon ships. They could have easily recreated part of the Dominion War. How cool would it be to run the Dominoin blockade with the Defiant? How about Kirk chasing Kahn around in his stolen USS Reliant? Take the Defiant out and chase Gul Dukat and his rogue Cardassians in his stolen Bird of Prey? Complete a mission in which you have to slingshot around the sun, go back in time and transport 2 whales into your cargo bay? How about taking the Voyager out, sneaking into a Borg swarm and stealing a transwarp coil or a new cortical implant for Seven. They had all those actors in the studio, for crying out loud. They did nothing with the story.

And the gameplay, oh the gameplay. The control are confusing and clunky. Every ships' controls react the same exact way, from the NX-01 to the Defiant: like riding a road bike in the sand. The AI is idioic too. You can group ships in your fleet together and issue group commands but you have to always check your strategic map because sometimes a ship would just go off, meandering through space on its own. The game is half strategy, half flight simulator and it doesn't do either one well. If it just picked one, the game would be better. After I got the hang of it, I figured out the trick to winning every time: group your ships into one task force and use the map to pick targets and aim. I gave up of trying to fly my ship around entirely. Once I figured that out, the game became obscenely easy - I beat the game in two days, playing only after work.

As of this writing, I've never been able to play a full game on Xbox Live. It locks up, times out or disconnects me every single time.

All in all, it's a fun game that had a lot of potential but fell way, way too short.

Pros:
- Good graphics
- Plenty of cool ships to buy
- Voice actors are cool and the sound is good
- Despite the clunky interface, it is an addicting game
- It's better than the other Bethesda ST game (Star Trek Encounters on the PS2) which is completely unplayable

Cons:
- Clunky, confusing controls
- Simple , one dimensional missions (I beat the game in two days)
- Doesn't follow established Star Trek lore
- Stupid AI
- No DS9 or Voyager missions
- It sucks as a space flight simulator and it really sucks as a strategy game

Been following the development of the game for awhile. Am a Star Trek fan, although not HUGE rabid fan, I enjoy watching reruns of TNG and DS9.

Was trying to decide if I wanted to spend over $50 on this game. Luckily I got it for Xmas. Unluckily, it didn't measure up to my expectations.

The bottom line: The graphics are great, the ship designs are uber impressive. However, the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. The controls are rather complex, and not for beginners. Camera angles, and navigation can get confusing. Make sure you read the instruction book cover to cover.

I was hoping for a game where friends could come over, pick up the joystick, and dive right into the game. This is not possible with this game.

Unwieldly controls, and difficult learning curve made me rate this 2 stars overall. The game becomes "not fun" when you're struggling to figure out how to maneuver your ship, let alone fire at the enemies.

This game is really overpriced at $50, if you can get it for under $20, I would say it would be a good buy. Hope this helped.

I've really been looking forward to this game. First, the good news: the graphics, despite some glitchiness including slow texture draws and freezes during cutscenes, are generally excellent. The music's fantastic, and the voice acting is better than average

The controls are a little difficult to get used to and fairly flaky at times--"full impulse power" doesn't always mean full impulse power, for instance.

The HUD is generally unobtrusive, which can be good except that in this case, it's unobtrusive to the extent that it tends to leave out important information. (For example, jumping to warp drive while you have an enemy ship targeted removes that ship's reticle from the HUD, which is a pain in the butt when you're trying to figure out how long you need to stay in warp to close on the ship.)

The biggest problem I've found--and it's a doozy--is that your allied ships' AI is completely unreliable. Ships stop, veer off on courses to nowhere, and alternately disengage from fights they should stay in and get their butts kicked in fights they should disengage from. On the last mission I played, I was tasked with towing a captured ship out of a system while fighting a running battle against pursuing ships. The best method for this would have been to aim the ship with the captured Klingon in tow (the Enterprise) at the destination starbase, and then to alternate among the other three ships to take down the chasers. The problem was that any time I switched from Enterprise to one of my other ships, Enterprise changed course, veering back into the battle. In effect, this turned what could have been a fun tactical combat challenge into a not-fun-at-all tactical tow-truck simulation.

In short, this portion of the game is a mess, and I hope Bethesda plans a patch, because, as usual in any group-tactics simulation, the missions you're tasked with completing rely heavily on your allies behaving like they have a clue. Very, very frustrating.

There are a lot of other small problems with the game--niggling things that are more a symptom of rushed, poorly thought-out design than anything else. (For example, the selected item title in a menu displays in nearly-illegible black. Who thought THAT was a good idea?) None of these are show-stoppers, but added up, they detract from the experience.

Simply put, I expected better from Bethesda. I realize tackling a "Star Trek" game project is a losing proposition, but I think Bethesda assigned the B-squad to work this one.

Controls require a learning curve like most games, and the starships "feel" like big heavy beasts. Maybe this is cool for some, but for me the combination of clunky ship control and freewheeling camera control made for an exercise in frustration. Half the time you don't know if you're up or down, backwards or forwards, etc.

Graphics are nice. You'll get great views of your ships damage modeling while you bitterly attempt to "fly" your ship toward an enemy vessel doing laps around you while writing his name in phaser blasts on your hull.

Audio is good, everything sounds like it should or what you would expect a Star Trek game to sound like. Learn to love the photon torpedos that pepper your ship, never mind that your not having any fun, it sounds great!

Enough rambling, you get the picture. I think Bethesda should stick to what they're good at, what they win awards for, and what their reputation is built on: great RPG's. If they had made Star Trek legacy an RPG like Oblivion, with the character creation, the deep storyline and gameplay...who wouldn't want that?

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.

Let's face it ... even if you're a Trek fan, you'd have to admit that the franchise's run on console systems has been pretty rocky. Knowing its track record, I was a little apprehensive when I found out that 'Legacy' was in production. However, most of the still-shots in the game's advertising ended-up looking pretty good, so eventually this wound-up being a title on my "buy" list.

I'm about three-quarters of the way through it now and I can say honestly that I don't regret having picked it up. There's more "good" here then "bad", no question about it. In terms of the games graphics, in my opinion, I thought it was a real beauty. I thought the ships in the various fleets were beautifully designed and the damage animations were all terrific. I'll touch on the actual explosions later.

The voice acting was all top-notch. Bethesda managed to get most of the grade-A talent (Bakula/ Shatner/ Stewart/ etc) to come back and reprise their roles for the game. With Trek having been off the radar for a while now, it was a real treat getting to hear some of these guys back in the saddle again. Furthermore, the sound F/X and background score were average. Nothing that stands out, but I wouldn't say either detracted from the game's play at all.

The story-line, while it's (admittedly) not going to win any awards, was competent enough to accomplish the task of tying the three generations of The Enterprise together without being ridiculous. If it was a cross-over then was done on television, I'd probably have watched and enjoyed it. It is pretty short though. I'd say the game-play clocks-in at about six to eight hours at the most. On the `ensign' level (easy), you can probably finish this REALLY quickly.

Although the game does get a thumbs-up from me, it does suffer from a few HUGE issues and several annoying minor ones. The worst, for me, was the inability to command the other vessels in your fleet. Other then a basic "form-up" command, if you want these ships to do anything more complex, you have to take command of them yourself and pilot them manually. I was stunned at the lack of basic "guard this", "escort that", and "stay" directions. To illustrate, there's a mission in the beginning of the game where the goal is to protect a small convoy of medical transports. Stupidly, of course, they all go shooting off in different directions. In order to accomplish the task of making sure those transports survive, you have to take control of one of your ships and send it off blindly in one direction while you go in another. The hope is if that vessel bumps into something, seemingly on the transport's route, you can jump over quickly and take care of the obstacle.

I've read several criticisms of the maneuverability of the ships themselves. I didn't have that big of an issue with this. These are big, lumbering vessels that pilot like ... big, lumbering vessels. For the most part, I was of the thinking that they shouldn't be able just turn on a dime. Because it's space (a 360 degree environment) it's true that the camera controls can become a little tricky, but no worse then a lot of other games out there. Where my issue came in was the control of the ships themselves. First, the button-layout is pretty awkward and there aren't any other combinations that might make it easier. This is something that the PC version may have as an advantage. Using a keyboard and a mouse would probably go a long way toward making this a bit easier. The other issue that drove me stone-crazy was the speed-controls. There's 'Stop/ Impulse/ and Warp' ... that's it. Although the option exists to divert your ship's power around, there's no degree of anything and no 'reverse'. For the life of me, I can't figure out how this was overlooked. There's one or two missions whose degree-of-difficulty is increased ten-fold, just because I wasn't able to back-up or fine-tune my acceleration.

Although I do like the graphics, I would have loved it if the "explosion" animations were a little cleaner. Anything I destroy seems to just fall apart into varying-shaped polygons with a light-effect behind it. There's no real "effect." If there's one thing that I know Star trek fans absolutely love it's a good sense of scale. These ships are big. We want them to look big, control big, and (most importantly) blow-up big. Sadly, it just doesn't deliever.

Another odd thing about the controls, you have the option of 'self-destructing' your ship. This is strange because if you do this with the Enterprise, it's 'game-over.' The Enterprise (or the "lead" vessel) always has to survive; having said that, to even make "self-destruct" an option is pretty ridiculous. For the remaining fleet, if your ship is damaged badly enough, that ship will blow up and be destroyed. If I'm to the point where I'm considering blowing the thing myself, what's the difference if I pull the trigger or if it's destroyed? Either way, the thing blows and I'm down a vessel to command. Who pulls the final trigger doesn't seem to have any strategic advantage one way or the other.

Not so much a criticism, but a missed opportunity, might have been the ability to customize some of the different models of ships you can purchase. Being able to adjust the speed/ shields/ or weapons systems would have been a cool way to increase the games replay value. As it stands now, it's a take-it-or-leave-it situation with each model and class. There was something else I wanted to put on the wish-list of features, and admittedly this is probably a double-edged sword since the controls are tricky, but I'd have loved to have been able to "ram" another ship. As it is, if you're going to collide with an object, you're just bumped around whatever the obstacle is. It would have been outrageously cool to be out of torpedoes, low on phaser-power, and diverted power to the shields and just smashed whatever was in your way.

Lastly, unless I'm REALLY missing something, you can only have one save file for the game! As it stands now, for example, if I want to load up the game I'm playing, I start right where I left off. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? It's aggravating as hell though, for a 360 owner who wants to replay a previous mission for a gaming-achievement they may have missed. Again, unless I'm COMPLETELY overlooking something, the only time you have the ability to replay a certain part of the game is immediately after you finish it.

I know this sounds like a lot, so I do feel obligated to (again) point-out that, over-all, I did like it. This is certainly the cream-of the-crop so far for its home gaming run. At around fifteen-dollars, if you're looking for something different to give you a break from playing GTA IV, Star Trek: Legacy is capable of adequately filling the void.

Note: I believe a free-demo is still available on xBox Live.

I finally got this game for the xbox 360, and I have to say its a little different than what I expected(the controls take a good few minutes to work out), in fact its better!!!!

The online multiplayer games are so much fun.

There are a few glitches here and there with graphics. But other than that It looks great.

Love it.

P.S. Dont listen to PC owners. If you have a 360 buy this game. Its just awesome.

... you'll like this game. Granted it's not the best game in the world, but the graphics are alright. Most of the voice acting is good. Shatner seems to be half awake though. From a gamer perspective I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. From a Star Trek fan perspective, I would. It's alright, has it's faults, but it's alright.

The premise for this game is good, but not good enough. I was drawn to buying this game because #1 I'm a huge Star Trek nerd and #2 I like video games with lazers. However, I'm not sold on the idea of flying a star ship around like a fighter out of Starfox. The level of detail they could have taken this game would have made it 10x as much fun (i.e. doing damage control, boarding enemy ships, etc.etc.)
But biggest of all is the controls. If you are prone to vertigo, this game is not for you. The camera controls are something to be dealt with as you're always attempting to figure out where the enemy is. Good sounds, good voice actors, nooooot that good gamer control.