Star Trek: Armada Review
Captains log star date 53550.0, the story so far.
The Dominion war is over. The three major powers of the Alpha Quadrant, once allied against a common foe, begin planning for the future. For now an uncomfortable peace has settled in the galaxy. On federation planets across the galaxy, the process of recovery has begun. The USS Enterprise-E, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, is assigned to re-establish Federation Support in some of the more devastated systems of the quadrant.
On the Klingon homeworld of Qo'nos, the population grows restless for battle. Newly appointed Chancellor Martock works closely with the federation ambassador Worf on efforts to restore the Empire to its former glory.
The Romulan Senate and its intelligence division, The Tal Shiar, conspire to tip the balance of power to their favour. Admiral Sela begins secret negations with unseen allies near the Klingon border.
And on the fringe of explored space, massive, metallic shapes move silently through the area, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Around them are the whispers of millions of minds working as one. The Borg have returned.
And this is where the game starts. The player can choose between the Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg campaigns and when all these have been completed the finale mission campaign will become available. Although the Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg campaigns can be accessed at any time it is suggested that the player completes them in order. And I would personally agree because it is a continuing story and to get the most out of it you should complete the missions in order. Its like reading a book, would you start reading the book in the middle and then go back to the start, No obviously not! So it applies here.
In most of the missions you get to build a base, ships, defences and that sort of thing to help you complete the objectives set out for the mission. When you are building up a base you will have the opportunity to build ships and research new weapons to use against your enemies and to do this you will obviously need credits. These come in the form of Dilithium that gets harvested from Dilithium moons. Some of the missions you will not be able to increase your fleet or defences you will have a certain amount of forces to start with and that's your lot.
This game is a lot like C&C, (Command & Conquer for those who don't know), and alike games, in the ideas used and the style it has been written it. You start off with a limited fleet, you settle, you advance and expand and then you conquer.
The way it has been presented is very good, from the smooth movement of vessels around the map to the cut sequences with life like representations of the characters we have come to know and love. The voices of the actual actors that star in the TV series have been used as well giving a complete representation of what you would see and here if you were watching it on TV. I was also impressed with the animation and movement of the various ships and freighter etc, they speed up when moving from a stationary position and the slow down when they are going to stop. The movement is very fluid and not jerky. Obviously a lot of research has gone into this area to produce these excellent results.
In addition to Dilithium moons the maps are made up of several other types of object. There are 5 different types of nebulae, some are ok to enter some it is advisable to steer clear of. They can be identified by there colour. Red and yellow nebulae should be avoided but green, blue and purple can be used as protection against enemy fire and enemy ships. There are asteroid belts, black holes, wormholes and planets as well which all add to the effect.
Not only is there a single player mode but a multiplayer mode as well and here you can choose from either Internet, Local area Network or instant action. When choosing Internet or Local Area Network an appropriate joining screen and when taking the Instant Action games you will be taken straight to the game setup menu. Once at the multiplayer game setup menu the player can select various parameters and conditions they wish to use to create their game. These include selecting specific maps and starting points with in them for each player, Shroud & Fog, Game type, number of players, amount of Dilithium etc. The usual things you would expect from this type of game.
The multiplayer also allows you to be all 4 races of people at the same time allowing you to get all the advantages of each race. This is an excellent idea because you can build the best of everything. For example the Borg cube is the strongest and most powerful ship but the Federation cannons are the best form of defence. Although the only advantage you will get out of it is if your opponent does not know the advantages of one race over another. This is my favourite part of the game but also another multiplayer feature is my least favourite part of the game and that is if you are playing a multiplayer game against the computer, using the instant action option, you cannot save the game once it has been started. So you either play it until completion or you give up and lose everything you have done so far.
Well it is easily the best Star Trek game I have ever played. A definite rival against games like the C&C series and AOE 2 even if you don't like Star Trek itself.