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Star Trek: Legacy review at IGN


Azrael Strife

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IGN has posted a review on Bethesda's Star Trek: Legacy, while they found the graphics to be stunning, they seem to have found the gameplay very lacking, calling the game "among the most disappointing games of the year".

 

At last year's E3, we were quite excited to see Mad Doc and Bethesda's progress on Star Trek: Legacy. Designed for the PC and the 360, the game seemed like a more accessible, prettier version of games like Bridge Commander and Klingon Academy. We confess we've always entertained delusions of being starship captains ourselves but seeing as how game reviewer isn't anywhere on that career track, we decided our best hope was to wait and live out our fantasy in virtual form. Now that the game is here, we can see that being a starship captain isn't nearly as fun as it first seemed.

 

You can read the full review here.

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At first glance this looked like a good game. But now I'm not too sure anymore. Well, if I happen across a cheap copy sometime I might give it a whirl, if just for the ships and voices. :)

 

But why no ability to save during a mission? That's a critical oversight. :)

 

- Zombie

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Me too, I was greatly excited about this game. I mean, I get to play even in the Enterprise period! that's just awesome! and graphically, the ships looked just terrific, but after reading this review, I think I'm not so much in a hurry to get it :)

 

They only gave it a 5.9 overall, 5.0 in gameplay and 3.5 in lasting appeal, sounds like a one-play game.

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True, but there is such a thing as being oversimplified. Take Starfleet Command 3.

 

One of the biggest complaints was the dumbing down of that game. Power distribution has been simplified to the point of non-existance, weapons management is a no-brainer, and the shield system is idiot-friendly.

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Hey, I enjoyed that game!

 

Not that I like all games to be no-brainers, but from time to time it's nice to play a game that requires little thinking, and as a plus, allows me to experience cool starship battles!

 

Anyway, I don't think IGN was complaining about the simplicity of the game, they're mostly complaining about wrong manual, unfriendly commands, bad design here and there, etc.

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Well, the only consistent thing about this game is that every review I've read is bad. I have yet to encounter a positive review.

 

And don't get me wrong, I like SFC3 too. But having played SFC2, I can tell you there is a whole lot missing in number 3.

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Perhaps :)

 

It's a shame about Legacy though, I was very excited about it. Why, oh why is it that hard to make a decent Star Trek game? most of them are pure and utter crap.

 

Probably they try to do everything, ie. make a trek game and then try and tweak it so it will be easy to pick up for the casual gamer(which most will see trek and think its nerdy and avoid it). So all you end up with is a wannabe trek game.

 

They should look at what makes a game apart from the licence, like the Star Wars games, which have all been good, maybe not Force Commander. I've also heard that Trek Armada 2 and Bridge Commander were good trek games though i've never played them.

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Perhaps :)

 

It's a shame about Legacy though, I was very excited about it. Why, oh why is it that hard to make a decent Star Trek game? most of them are pure and utter crap.

 

Probably they try to do everything, ie. make a trek game and then try and tweak it so it will be easy to pick up for the casual gamer(which most will see trek and think its nerdy and avoid it). So all you end up with is a wannabe trek game.

 

They should look at what makes a game apart from the licence, like the Star Wars games, which have all been good, maybe not Force Commander. I've also heard that Trek Armada 2 and Bridge Commander were good trek games though i've never played them.

 

Bridge Commander is an absolute piece of junk. The prospect of being in a fed starship bridge does sound appealing to a fan, yes? but it's not nearly as fun if the gameplay is repetitive and hardly fun, combat when run by AI is lame and when manually handled is extremely difficult as the controls to manually move the ship are extremely hard to get the hang of, crappy graphics (in some games they do matter, especially in action star trek games! :)), not so interesting storyline, only 1-2 different ships per race (I was so freaking tired of seeing the Galor and Keldon class ships of the Cardassians, which where the bad guys, they obviously didn't bother to make more ship designs, and the races involved count to 4, including yourself).

This is of course just my opinion, some people may have found it highly appealing.

 

On a different note, I still have no clue what New Worlds was supposed to be :)

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The only thing good about Bridge Commander was the story. Even the character models were crap. And the voice acting... Only your bridge crew, with the exception of your Number One, were good. The others sound like they were hamming it up. Even Matan sounded corny.

 

And yeah. When you find out what New Worlds is, I think Paramount wants to know too... :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Like pretty much every fan of Trek, I was looking forward to this game. I was hoping that it would be a worthy successor to Armada II (which isn't so bad in its self in terms of mod support extending gameplay decently enough), but I don't think mods (presuming its even mod friendly to begin with) will save this title.

 

I don't know why they went so wrong here. I can't imagine that something like contracts for voice talent for example, is an excuse for poor game production (I doubt this could sap your production money this badly). I still think its probably more to do with deadlines and pressures to meet them where franchises are concerned - because it doesn't appear to be because of lack of talent. I mean, if gameplay is so horrible, was there even a notion of a beta for this title to work out any kinks in the first place?

 

As far as I know this game never had one. At least not a public one. Same was true of quite a few of the Star Wars titles. Too many game producers seem to rely on fixing their games after the fact with patches (but hey, a deadline was met on time so its all good?). What bothers me even more than that some games need patching after the fact, is not enough support after they release 'em before moving on to another product.

 

ex. Empire at War and its expansion Forces of Corruption. Not bad gameplay with these so much as balancing issues however. About the only good points these two games have is that they are very moddable if your into the extra work that entails.

 

If you just game, its frustrating however. Because now its not about anticipating the release of the game, but also about waiting for the communities to step up to the plate and make it more interesting.

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On paper, it is exceedingly impressive. The graphics are top-notch, the damage effects are excellent, sound is true to each of the series, and the voice talents are enough to give a Trekkie a nerdgasm: All 5 Captains are voiced by their respective actors, according to IMDb.

 

In reality, the controls are dodgy at best, the ships refuse to behave the way you want them to in battle, giving orders is no guarantee of them doing exactly what you want (its as if you can only strongly suggest what to do) aiming the torpedoes rely entirely on luck with no skill involved whatsoever, and the starbase models are recycled for all structures. The lighting, while impressive, also stinks. Even the dark green Klingon ships look white, thanks to reflections coming from a yellow star.

 

All in all, I can only recommend one thing: If you still insist on getting it, get it at the cheapest price you can. Paying full retail is a bigger crime.

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Seeing as I cannot resist cool Star Trek battles, I could not help it but to get the darned game, and let me tell you... don't you even think of buying this junk, it's worse than I could have imagined from the review.

 

When will I learn to listen...

LOL, ouch that really does sound like a piece of junk. If it really is as bad as it sounds, I'll wait some more to get it. People will be falling over each other to get rid of their copies ASAP. That should drive the price down. Which reminds me, when are you selling? :)

 

- Zombie

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  • 2 weeks later...
All in all, I can only recommend one thing: If you still insist on getting it, get it at the cheapest price you can. Paying full retail is a bigger crime.

 

Just one word: I finished this "game" like 3 weeks ago and i can just agree with matri, the game is a crime!!!

Im somewhat a star trek expert and played most of the games that where released, this one here is a cheap massproduct for consoles and even there its nothing special. You cannot control anything but click around and fire your weapons, your ships magically repair themselves even when their warp engines are burning and the ship has more holes than a good austrian ementaler cheese :)

 

The story is laughable about a bad bad vulcan scientist somehow creating or modifiying the borg to eleminate everything inlogical in the galaxy, looks like her pychologist has a lot of work todo...

 

Just do yourself and every trecky a favor and dont buy this game you will regret it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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