Space-the Final Frontier these are the voyages of a game called Star Trek Legacy. That’s right for all you Star Trek fans out there the moment that you have been waiting for is here. ST: Legacy has finally been released for the XBOX 360. Now it goes without saying that I am a huge Star Trek fan, which is why I am the one writing this review. So just to let you all know I have looked at this game objectively and not totally through the eyes of a Star Trek Fan.
In ST: Legacy you play as an admiral in control of a small task force of ships. What makes this game stand out from all the other Star Trek games is that you actually get to play in all 3 eras of Star Trek lore. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about here is a brief summary of the three eras. The Enterprise era (which also is the name of the show ST: Enterprise) is based on the time period when the Federation was first started. It’s most prominent ship and captain were Capt. Jonathan Archer who is played by Scott Bakula. His ship is of course the NX-Enterprise.
The second era is known as The Original Series, this is basically anything that has to do with Captain James T. Kirk (voiced by none other than William Shatner) and the original crew of the starship NCC-1701 Enterprise. The last is of course the Next Generation, which has all of the more current captains. Jean Luc Picard (voiced by Patrick Stewart), Benjamin Sisko (voiced by Avery Brooks) and Kathryn Janeway (voiced by Kate Mulgrew), who captain the Enterprise D and E, USS Defiant, and the USS Voyager respectfully. So the game starts off with Capt. Archer’s Enterprise.
While playing through this era you will notice that the ships do not posses shields, but instead have a stronger hull plating to protect them. This is also the beginning of the century spanning storyline. You will assist a Vulcan ship who you find out is being attacked by the Romulans. Later you will find this to be a ruse and you will be given the task of arresting this Vulcan. For those of you that don’t know Star Trek lore, Vulcan’s can live a lot longer than humans.
The most famous Vulcan, Spock is actually 256 years old if I remember correctly. So you end up chasing this rouge Vulcan throughout all the eras of Star Trek. Ending in one of the best Star Trek ship battles I have seen since the episode “Fortune favors the Bold” on Deep Space Nine. Even though all this may sound as if this game is a good 30-40 hours. Alas this is just not the case; I completed this game in two days. I must say I was extremely disappointed at the pacing. You would think since this game is bringing together all the Captains of the Star Trek Universe that you would be in for one massive game.
Unfortunately the only Captains it really features is Archer, Kirk, and Picard. Sisko and Janeway make cameos at best. Star Trek Legacy does have a strong storyline, which was written by legendary Star Trek writer D.C. Fontana. It just does a horrible job of keeping pace with it. If the story had a few more missions for Sisko and Janeway it would have really been the ultimate Star Trek gaming experience.
The Graphics in this game are the best I have seen on any Star Trek game since Star Fleet Academy, and Klingon Academy. The ship models are detailed to perfection. My jaw dropped as I loaded the game and saw the Enterprise fly over head. The graphics don’t stop at the ships, the planets, as well as space stations were all modeled extremely well. Even with the models of everything looking so good, the graphics do have some glitches that creep up. When a ship or planet is destroyed the debris will pass right through your ship.
You won’t take any damage of course, but I would have really like to have seen the developers take the time and actually have the debris bounce off the shields. I think that would have made for a nice effect. Also the collision detection is not really there either. When you fly towards a ship you would think that you would hit said ship and receive a lot of damage. Not so, you just sort of slide off it, as though it is nothing there. No damage, No collision course alarms, nothing.
This will come as a disappointment to all those who would love to smash the Enterprise-E into the side of a Borg cube. Also the planets and star bases in the game looked like they were just kind of pasted in. I realize that the ships are the stars in this type of game, but the developers could have shown some love to the surrounding space. The sound effects in this game are standard Star Trek fare. You have your phasers and torpedoes as well as warp speed effects which are pretty cool. One of the strange things is that you will not find any Star Trek music in this game at all. They chose to record new music, so if you have any CDs that contain the theme songs to your favorite shows, you may just want to make up a custom soundtrack.
For all of you fans of multiplayer space shooters this one is for you. The multiplayer is really fun in this game (when you can find someone to play with.) The downside is that you are only given two options Deathmatch, and Co-Op Wave. The latter of the two just pits you and four friends vs. waves of Enemy ships. Now some of the complaints I have is that when you pick your faction, you then choose which ships you want to command, for some reason you cannot do the same when playing vs. the computer.
Say you want to re-enact that last scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. The good ole Enterprise, vs. the Reliant. Sorry you can’t, if you choose the Enterprise, and then choose the Federation as the computer opponent the computer will always choose the most powerful ship it can afford, which is the Excelsior, it should also be noted that the Excelsior can beat the Enterprise in a dogfight hands down. (I know, it saddens me too) Another thing that really disappoints me is that when you sit down with this game and are ready for some awesome multiplayer action, you will find Xbox live to be a bit of a ghost town. For all the star trek fans out there who own Xbox 360’s none of them except me it seems wants to play online. So if any of you actually read this review and want to play against me, my gamer tag is Emissary55 (Yes, the Emissary of the Prophets from Deep Space Nine)
In closing Star Trek Legacy is only going to appeal to fans of the show. This is a shame, because if done correctly this could have garnered new fans to the aging franchise. As a huge fan of Star Trek I absolutely loved this game, I recommend it to all the fans of the show. Unfortunately I don’t think anyone else will suffer through the endless space combat, and the storyline with characters that they have never heard of.
