Make It So: The 10 Best Star Trek Games in the Quadrant
7. Star Trek: Armada (2000)
If Birth of the Federation was the Star Trek game turn-based fans were dying for, then Armada was the franchise’s answer to the wishes of real-time strategy fans. Set in The Next Generation era, Armada let players assume control of the fleets of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Borg, and battle it out in a range of conflicts from small tactical skirmishes to huge fleet clashes with hundreds of ships. The game featured a traditional RTS single-player campaign with a variety of mission types, as well as single- and multi-player free play modes that let players start from scratch on huge maps filled with resources, wormholes, and enemies.
Great 3D visuals, music, and voice acting from series regulars like Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, and Denise Crosby gave the game a polished Star Trek feel. The gameplay didn’t break any new ground in the RTS genre, but it gave fans a unique new way to experience the Star Trek universe. A sequel, Star Trek: Armada II, was released in 2001. It featured slightly improved graphics with a new engine capable of true “3D” Z-axis ship movement, new races, tweaked mechanics, and a new story.
30 thoughts on “Make It So: The 10 Best Star Trek Games in the Quadrant”
I’m glad to learn that there are some decent Star Trek games. I had always heard that they are all hot garbage.
This is an old article, but as a list of the best (historical) Star Trek games, it’s incomplete without MTrek, probably the first online multiplayer Star Trek game ever. So addictive, it’s still being played today.
take it seriously as Legacy is one of the best Star Trek games ever created.
Star Trek: Legacy got 8.0 out of 10 when it was reviewed
2006 in the Official XBOX magazine (also in a retrospective review done last
year by the Official XBOX Magazine they called the game “almost
great)” .
Here is why Legacy in my opinion is the best Star Trek game ever:
* All 5 Trek Captains reprise their roles by lending their voice talent to the game
* The game covers all 5 Trek TV series and all 3 Trek eras
* D.C. Fontana wrote the story (this is huge as she is a well respected Trek
writer with credits dating back to TOS. Most games don’t have professional
writers and stories are often paper thin if not abysmal)
* It Features all of the well know ships in the Trek universe (Federation,
Klingon, Romulan and Borg)
*Lets the play be able to play as any of the 4 factions in deathmatches
(Federation, Klingon, Romulan or Borg)
* Also the developer (Mad Doc Software) at the request of fans of the game
released the developer tools to allow the mods to game (that means: new ships
or tweaks to the existing ships and new missions). This is huge as this is
almost unheard of for this to be done and gives the game a lot of extra value
beyond just the stock version on the game that is on the XBOX 360.
I am not going to be dishonest about it and will admit Legacy that ad a few
issues but nothing them were game breaking. The issues the game faced (a few
bugs and unimplemented developer stated features) were a result of the
publisher (Bethesda Softworks) forcing the developer (Mad Doc Software) to push
the game to market before it was polished & completed. This sadly is all
too common the video game industry and often is due the publisher wanting to
meet a certain target date or deciding not to invest further funding in the
development of the game. What often happens in these instances are for the game
in question to be cancelled or the developer to threaten to cut funding. In the
case of Star Trek: Legacy the it was the latter and the developer decided to
take a game what was essentially in the beta stage of development and release
it rather than have the entire game canned. I personally am glad they made the
decision to publish that game regardless of it not being the completely
finished game that the developer had envisioned because the game truly is still
a remarkable game that is fun and holds up well despite a few flaws.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Game_Show