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| | Title:
Star Trek: Legacy
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System:
Xbox 360
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Genre:
Action/Adventure
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Publisher:
Bethesda Softworks
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Developer:
Mad Doc Software LLC
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Release:
12/15/2006
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Online:
Yes
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ESRB:
Everyone (E)
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Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship…yeah you know the rest. If the previous sentence gets your heart racing with thoughts of starships, Klingons, phasers, photon torpedoes and warp drive, then Bethesada has a game for you. Star Trek: Legacy is the Star Trek game fans have been waiting for. It is a historical journey through the entire Star Trek franchise, from the disappointing Enterprise to the impressive Next Generation and beyond. Be warned though, being a Star Trek fan is a must for enjoying this title. There are plenty of problems with Legacy that only the fan appreciation (like being able to control the Enterprise) will cover up.
Legacy has three modes of play: Single Player, Skirmish, and Multiplayer. While SP and MP are pretty self explanatory, Skirmish is a mode where gamers can set up four teams of fleets from any era or race (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg) and jump into battle. It’s pure unadulterated fun for those not patient enough to work their way through the single player. This isn’t surprising since the SP does have its share of problems.
The biggest gripe anyone is coming across while playing the single player is the total lack of saving – at any point during the missions. If the missions were quick, easily repeatable, and did not drag on with tasks like “scan this” or “warp here”, it wouldn’t be so bad. This isn’t the case, though, and as a result one wrong move can lead a gamer to replaying an entire mission.
So what can cause this ‘one wrong move’? Surprisingly, it is the lack of decent camera control, and starships that are hard to maneuver and command. Most of the time the camera will never stay where the gamer wants. Pressing the Right Bumper in order to target was a smart idea, but it shouldn’t have to be used as the primary way of aiming a starship at the enemy. More than once gamers are going to be thinking “where am I flying, where is the enemy, and why isn’t the camera even looking the correct direction?” Does it kill the experience? Yes, considerably. The hard to control starships don’t help either. They just feel too cumbersome when compared to how agile they move on the shows or movies. Sure the Defiant is the most maneuverable starship in the game, but it moves a tenth as quick as the Defiant does on DS9. The Enterprise-E also falls victim to the poor control scheme, and this will be especially apparent to Trekkies who have watched movies like Nemesis. This problem gets magnified when multiple ships are under your command (four total all accessible on the D-Pad). Most of the time it is best to let the computer find its way to enemy and sit back and just micromanage the power distribution in each ship. The power distribution mechanic works surprisingly well. Allocate more energy to the engines and the ships do go faster. The same applies to shields as well as weapons. Masters at this game will eventually be able to divert just enough energy to fit the situation which makes Legacy, on some level, deeper than just a shoot-em up.
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