Customer Reviews

Star Trek Tactical Assault

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The fact is there are practically no Star Trek games on the market. So when one is released there is much doubt as to whether it can provide any real satisfaction. Tactical Assault is not what I expected, and it's not really what I wanted in a Star Trek video game.

In itself the game isn't terrible. The graphics are acceptable, the gameplay is sufficient (if not simplistic), and the story demands just enough of your attention. However, it certainly does not live up to its advertisment. It does not offer true 3D space battles. There isn't a great variety of ships to choose from and the missions all feel the same. But I suppose the worst part of this game is that there is no tactical strategy involved. Your objective is to shoot down your enemy's shields while protecting your own. There is no depth, no thought, no creativity here.

If you're a diehard fan, it might be worth a gander. If you're looking for a simple space dogfighting game, you've come to the right place. If you're looking for a sci-fi game which requires strong tactical ability, search elsewhere.

Much of the actual function of the game has already been documented and reviewed, so I will be more brief.

The game play is based on communicating, scanning, warping, battle, and upgrades.

Communicating and Scanning are basically the same thing. It's a time sink but if you skip through it quickly, you might miss some detail you need. It's rare, but you never know, so you waste time reading pointless chatter.

Warping replays the same sort of scene each time, so it's a waste of 3 seconds each time.

Battle is all about hitting red alert prior to warping, so your shields are charged. You keep your least damaged part of the shields facing the enemy, and you spin around to fire rear weapons sometimes.

Tactics are contrived. If you pick the wrong ship to attack first, you pretty much die. The AI uses triggers such as damage level of ship X to cause Ship Y and Ship Z to fly away.

Also, you can't see much around you when you have an enemy selected. Invariably, you spend the entire battle flying in a big circle to keep your shields lined up right. Very often, this leads to crashing into a planet, asteroid, or starbase. There's no warning, just BAM "We can't survive this level of damage much longer, captain." then BOOM.

Sometimes, you're three warps into a mission, and you are heavily damaged. You have to park and wait for your emergency power to regenerate, because when you warp in, your shields will regen 20%, but your emergency power will not. If you forget leave the DS to regen shields, you can't have it folded up.

The saving grace for the game are upgrades. You can pick how to improve your ship by allocating earned points, based on mission completion rating, towards your crew. Sometimes, it's hard to figure out the right upgrades to get, but it's the addictive part of the game.

But, don't let that convince you to buy it. If you forget that you left it regenerating emergency power, and the DS powers off for low battery; or a child finds the DS and pulls out the game; or you have to turn the DS off in the middle of a mission...

...THEN IT WILL ERASE ALL STATS FOR YOUR PLAYER.

In other words, you don't just lose the mission you're at, but you go back to it being a brand new game. This happenned three times before I finally gave up.

This is an unacceptable problem with the game.

I won't comment on the accuracy of the Star Trek canon in this game but if you are considering purchasing it consider the following: This game is not particularly stragetic in nature, you serve as the captain of a starship and you engage in intergalatic dogfights with multiple allies and multiple bogies. These battles are conducted in a two-dimensional environment rather than a true aerial environment aka there is no vertical plane only horizontal navigation.

Because of the limited engagement environment this game quickly becomes repetitive as you deploy the same "Tactics" over and over (blast the same shield over and over until you can breach their hull). I feel the game would be better served if it lived up the hype on the box by allowing you to create fleets of starships and strategically deploying them, but if you prefer flight simulators this game serves as a reasonable approximation of one.

Don't know why the reviews are low for this game.If I had listened to the reviews I would be missing out on a good game.If you played Star Trek Bridge Commander and Star Trek Legacy on the pc then this is how this game plays.You even get to interact with other ships and races.You must even decide on making a choice and deciding if it is the right one you made.There is statagy involved there are firing arcs on the ship and while waiting for your phasers and photons to reload you may need to distance yourself or hide behind an asteroids until your weapons recharge.Once weapons recharge go in with your weapons firing.If you a Trek fan and like space combat with ships pick this game up.Like I said I was very suprised how good this game was.

After reading the review in Nintendo Power (they gave it a 4 out of 10), I was sceptical about this game. Deciding to give it a chance, I discovered that they really messed up on the rating. As the title implies, this is tactical. For those live action gamers; don't worry. It's not turn based tactics, it's real-time. Rather than flying straight at the enemy and blasting them,though, you have to hit them strategically, and time your shots to lower their shields. After that you have to finish them before they can do the same to you. This concept is incredibly addictive and most space battles are long. The Wireless mode is super fun, blasting your pals as a Klingon ship is always fun. The graphics are pretty nice, too, for a DS game. If you are all graphics, then you wouldn't like this game. But it's been proven that gameplay comes before graphics, and this one scores big time in that category. You are also able to make decisions to avoid conflict and these situations really put your logic and deplomacy to the test. This game is a worthy addition to any collection; especially if you are a Trekkie.

I was hoping to finally have a handheld version of "Starfleet Command" from the PC, and I got it... sort of. The "feel" of the game is very similar, but a lot of the extra goodies that really differentiated between ships and races got streamlined out. No drones, no tractors, none of the race-specific exotic weapons, and only Federation or Klingon to choose from. All right, enough bashing. The controls are good and the action is fast. All in all very entertaining, if a little simpler than I would have liked, and a must for die-hard Trek fans.

Pros:
--- You are the captain of a Federation star ship
--- The federation starships are powerful enough to put up a fight
--- There is a diplomacy system

Cons:
--- The captain literally controls EVERYTHING on the ship, right down to firing phasers. And there is literally no delegation of responsiblities to your crew. This means that you are in control of steering the ship and firing your weapons. So you'd better be good at multitasking.

The Star Trek franchise makes it's debut on the DS with Tactical Assault, a strategy game that features some interesting elements, but in the end doesn't have enough going for it to truly make it something special. The combat is slow and dull, which is disappointing enough besides the fact that the storyline has less a Star Trek feeling to it. The game boasts about William Shatner's involvement, but you'd hardly know he was here too. There's campaigns to partake in from both the Federation and the Klingons, which is a nice touch (love the use of the Klingon language) and does add some variety to the game, and the combat itself isn't necessarily hard or really all that challenging; it's just drawn out. The graphics look good (the opening cutscene is awesome) and Shatner's voice overs, few as they are, are great, but the repetitive gameplay is what drags Tactical Assault down in both departments as being strategy and Star Trek. It's worth a look for Trekkies and maybe some strategy buffs, but after that, that's it.

I am a fan, so I was willing to put up with a lot more than a casual gamer, but after 2 hours trying to make sense out of this game, I had to give up. It just isn't fun. Regardless of any issues, it's not fun, so why play?

I was looking forward to this game for my DS, and was already aware of some of the negative reviews. However, I looked at some screenshots and videos of gameplay online, and didn't think too much of it.

Unfortunately, the gameplay does indeed leave much to be desired. Similar to my review of 'Lord of the Rings: The Third Age,' 'ST: Tactical Assault' is not challenging in a fun way...it is challenging in the way that it stacks up unrealistic odds for the gamer.

For example, in mission 3, you have two ships that are battering down on you...and your ship has no way of repairing itself, or retreating to a certain area. (And if you do plan on retreating to a certain area, the ship(s) manage to catch up to you and continue to batter you). Even when it seems you might have the chance of destroying your enemy, they still manage to overcome you; the enemy vessels always seem to be better equipped.

This is true even for the skirmish modes, where you battle a ship outside the campaign.

Now, the main aspect of any game is to be fun (and as aforementioned) challenging...not a 'frustrating' challenge. A video game should have reply value; 'ST: Tactical Assault' is one you want to throw against the wall.

With the latest Star Trek film that came out in 2009, I'm crossing my fingers for a challenging and enjoyable Trek game...that looks good and plays good.