Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than I expected, November 19, 2001
By A Customer
I just bought Star Trek: Armada 2. It definitely looks like Activision took notes from all the complaints in Star Trek: Armada (1) and fixed the problems. Now you can have up to 16 ships in each fleet. There are 3 single play campaigns including Star Fleet, Klingon, and the Borg. All the Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager ships are in this game. The tutorials are great and let you play as Species 8472, Romulans, and Cardassians. The idea in the tutorial is that you can learn how the enemy works so you can beat them.The graphics are great! The ships have special weapons which require recharging (similar to magic in Warcraft). When starships explode in the game, it is really cool. The introduction has pretty good animation and a voiceover by Patrick Stewart. The only possible thing that I could ask for more is to include the Dominion. This is what Homeworld: Catalysm should have been.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Star Trek: Armada 2, November 19, 2001
This sequel to one of the more popular of the Star Trek PC games has a a whole new look and feel for the gameplay experience. Imagine this game as Star Trek Armada 1 bred with Homeworld Cataclysm. This game has much more to offer than it's predecessor. This game has an entirely new 3D view similar to that of Homeworld and the same overhead view found in Star Trek Armada 1. The graphics have been retouched and more beautifully sculpted in the computer and the action sequences can now be viewed in a wide variety of views and a new zooming feature for the feel of detail in every ship in your armada. Activision has added new ship classes as well to 6 different races (Federation, Klingon, Borg, Cardassian, Romulan, and Species 8472. Although you can only play all 6 in multiplayer mode and only 3 of the races can be played in single player mode; newer strategic abilities have been added to this game. Much like Homeworld, your ships can now be grouped into 3D formations such as 16 of your ships into X Formation or Wall Formation. Ships can now run on both impulse and warp speeds during gameplay. The ship classes for each race has numbered over 20 each. An example of the classes include Federation ships: Venture, Defiant, Akira, Sabre, Steamrunner, Intrepid, Iwo-Jima, Aegian, Colony, Cargo, Galaxy, Sovereign, Nebula, etc. Ships each have the existing special weapons of the first game and also new additions of special weapons. There are several new starbases such as ship upgrade facilities where the player can upgrade the ship shields, life support, engines, sensors, and weapons. Planets can be colonized by colony ships and also trade centers can be built so that you could mine and trade dilithium, latinum, metal from planets, and crew. The storyline is well written and takes place just shortly before Voyager returns home to Earth from the Delta Quadrant. Overall, Star Trek Armada 2 is a much improved game that deserves player attention. This is a game for all Star Trek fans and a definite must buy!
Gameplay = 9/10
Graphics = 9/10
Sound = 8/10
Value = 9/10
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Resistance is futile... but frustration may vary!, January 27, 2002
By A Customer
I was surprised to receive a copy of Activision's Star Trek: Armada II for Christmas. The mid-morning of the 26th, I turned on the computer and loaded up this bad boy. After a complete installation of 1.3 gigabytes (that's including the need for an extra 100 megabytes of hard drive space for a Windows swap file), I sat back and let Patrick Stewart's voiceover carry me through the opening movie. Armada II picks up six months after the events of the first game ends. Although the Borg were beaten back by the combined Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets, they have returned with a deadly new planetary assault vessel capable of assimilating an entire world. To prevent the Borg from gaining a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation is launching the first-ever assault against the Borg in the Delta Quadrant. (In one of the battles you capture a new kind of transwarp portal that allows Starfleet to travel to the Delta Quadrant.) With Starfleet off in the Delta Quadrant, the Klingons are left playing peacekeeper in the Alpha. But the Klingons are having problems of their own - the Cardassians. In the mix for good measure are the Romulans and Species 8472. Got all this so far? Ok. That's just the story. Armada II as a game is a whole other story. Visually, Armada II carries over the best elements of its predecessor. The graphics are great for an RTS - the colors rich and vibrant; the ship and station textures distinct. With the new 3-D perspective (which you can toggle between that and 2-D) and the new tactical feature of fleet formations, Armada II has gained much ground over the original. Game play has changed significantly also. The new structures, ships, and enemies make Armada II more challenging. Combine this with the new economic component, players gain a more tangible, realistic perspective to the managerial tasks of interstellar combat. The need to colonize worlds for crew reinforcements; building orbital mining facilities to extract metal to build your fleet, and the need to harvest both dilithium and latinum to purchase or trade with other players or non-player characters is a unique consideration missing from other Star Trek games, while not taking away from your combat objective. Now for the bad news: Armada II can be very frustrating to play. Even without the economic considerations, new ships, technologies, and races, Armada II is still a difficult game to play... and at times even boring. I've just gotten through the first nine mission of the Federation campaign after many grueling hours of game play and a lot of saves. Yes, the objectives change from mission to mission, but to keep fighting the Borg successively is a bit draining. In the original Armada, your mission varied between fighting your enemy to locating a lost ship or outrunning an enemy fleet while still remaining within the original context of the story. So far it's just hunt and kill, which stays with the story but gets redundant after awhile. Couple this with some game restrictions like the 600-officer cap (which limits the number of ships and stations you can build) and the frustration mounts. I began the game employing the same tactics I used in the first Armada but I had to quickly discard that strategy. This might seem like a plus because the game wouldn't be like too much like the original because that would be predictable, right? Wrong. The AI in this game is less responsive when you need it to be and more aggressive when you don't want it to be. In addition, the older ship classes are not as resilient as in the first Armada, which means they can't hold up as long in a firefight as they used to. I used to send in my construction ships as a decoy to lure enemy forces away because they had stronger shields and a high crew compliment. Not anymore! Also, the construction time for ships and facilities is drastically shorter making combat that much longer. The faster a fleet can be built the more you have manage and the more the game becomes cumbersome. Don't think this is a problem? Try sending a fleet of Defiant-class ships against a Borg cube while trying to build your support stations and then we'll talk. Or did you think you'd have enough metal or dilithium or crew personnel to amass your defenses? Still unphased? Now try to go on the offensive. You'll score little damage against an enemy shipyard when it can build a dozen ships in under five minutes to defend itself. Although this creates a higher degree of difficulty and lends credence to the war-aspect that Armada II is centered around, it can turn a two-hour mission (real-time) into a three day event! I like a game that won't end in two hours but I don't like taking two weeks to complete one board - and I'm not even up to the Klingon campaign! Gameplay aside, Armada II hangs from time to time during the cinematic cutscenes. The audio and visual sputter probably because of a RAM drop (a technology issue) and I'm running a full install with over a gig free of storage, 128MB of RAM, and a 40x CD-ROM drive on a PIII 733 processor (you computer geeks understand what I was saying). Other than load time and minor performance problems, Armada II, so far, is a worthy successor to the original. The story is enticing (the voiceover work by Patrick Stewart, Alice Krige, and J.G. Hertzler a plus), the combat challenging, and the game play generally fun. Although my review is mixed, I do like the game, but I still have a lot to go. I don't think anything will change my opinion, but if it does, you'll be the first to know. Right now, I recommend Armada II to any Star Trek gaming nut who enjoyed the first one and has been disappointed by almost every other Star Trek title published in the last two years.
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