LADYDRAGON.COM - STAR TREK- STAR FLEET COMMAND

14 Degrees and Quicksilver has team up to bring us Star Trek: Star Fleet Command a real - time strategic space combat based on the board game Star Fleet Battles.

You will start the game as the captain of the race of your chose. 6 Empire are offer to you, The United Federation of Planets, The Klingon Empire, The Romulan Star Empire, The Lyran Star Empire, The Hydran Kingdoms and The gorn Confederation.

Then you have 3 difficulty level to select, Captain, Commodore, Admiral. the default to start is always Captain then you will progress as you move on.

Campaign, Skirmish and multiplayer mode are your options for you to select in the menu. the multiplayer mado will allow you to play with ip to 6 players. The Skirmish mode will let you play single missions that you can customize. The Campaign mode will allow to have a career that can last for a period of 30 years. You need to choose the area that you wish to start, Early, Middle and Late. The area will determine witch technology is available like the ships and missiles.

the main campaign menu will offer you many options before you start your first missions. First you are given 50 "prestige points" to start with, the way you manage these point are very important because these point will allow you to buy ships or get new officers.

Tutorials is your first option will help you learn more about your Empire. They will be custom according to your race.

Technical Missions is where you can practice what you learn in the tutorial, highly recommended or else you will have trouble managing your weapons.

Rank and Medals will allow you to follow your progress during your career.

Recruiting Office is where you will manage all your officers like getting more experience one or simply transfer some to your other ships.

Vessel Library to see all the statistics on the shops that are available.

Shypward is where you can repair, trade or buy more ships remember though that you can only own 3 ships so choose your ships wisely.

" Prepare to attack!"

" Travel deferent world!"

Spacedock is where you decide what exactly you want on your ship like spare parts or what type of missile you wish to use.

Then you have the Galactic news/ maps. the map will tells you where is your location among the developed sectors and where are the other Empires. You can get also informations on the other races and what type of weapons they like to use.

Then you are ready to go to the briefing where they will tell you what is your mission. then off you go.

When you start playing you will play in an environment that is a mix of the star trek TV show and the board game. You will need to be careful where you go because you can encounter surprises like black hole that will suck you in.

Star Fleet Command is not a game easy to master the control are quite difficult to master. Specially the weapons very complex to fire you need to select then check your energy then fire that is the cloaking devise does not get in the way and all empire are different. So you need to have a lot patience. Also the the tactical window barely inform you on where you are visually but does not offer written detail informations.

One thing that is lacking is the sound barely no sound at all during the game, very boring.

But at least you have a nice design universe where while you are traveling you will be able to see deferent planet and the explosions of a ship is quite nice to see.

The gameplay is very complex but when you get the hang of it you will have fun because it offers you a lot of option to manage. The book included offers you a lot of informations on your races and ships that are interesting to read. You will also have many hours of play with all these missions, overall more then 100.

Star Trek: Star Fleet Command is a strategy game where they emphasized a lot on the detail of the gameplay so if you like to manage every little detail and have a lot patient to master the controls you will like this game.

Companies

Developers

Quicksilver
www.quicksilver.com
14 Degrees East
www.14degrees.com

Publisher
Interplay
www.interplay.com

Category
Strategy

Notes

Interest :80%
Control :73%
Graphics :83%
Sounds :65%
Gameplay :84%
Originality :80 %

TOTAL : 78 %

Requirements

Operation System
Windows 95/98

Processor
200 MHz Pentium®

Memory
32 MB RAM

Hard Drive
250 MB

CD ROM
4x

Sound card
DirectX-Compatible Sound card

Video Card
DirectX-Compatible Video card

Input Device
mouse

ESRB Rating
Everyone

Julie Meyer

Golden Lion

DEMO