Star Trek: Legacy
The final frontier for Star Trek, after conquering film and television, seems to be video games. But with Star Trek: Legacy, the franchise better be prepared to take some baby steps first instead of breaking into warp speed. Legacy spans the timeline of all five Star Trek television shows, with an overarching storyline tat begins in the era of Star Trek: Enterprise. It then moves into The Original Series before wrapping up in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. And to give it a level of authenticity beyond just the Star Trek name, developer Bethesda Studios even roped in all five actors who chaired the Captain\'s seat from each TV show, to voice the game.
This works pretty well, even though a few of them sound as if they phoned in their dialogues. But as this tactical-game-meets-flight-simulator isn\'t filled with interactive characters, the voice actors bring some familiarity to the game. Each scenario puts you in control of a ship, which can grow into a fleet of four, as you explore strange new worlds. In each mission, you will run into battles with familiar faces like Romulans, Klingons and the all-time favorites, The Borg. What would impress most Trekkies are the faithful models of all starships from the Star Trek series - from the various versions of the USS Enterprise Romulan Warbirds to the Klingon Birds Of Prey. There is a level of thrill to be flying Captain\'s Kirk\'s Enterprise as you attempt to destroy a Klingon ship, or command Captain Picard\'s Enterprise against the Borg.
Alas, what disappoints slightly is the repititive nature of a game. Enter any stay system with some ships and the level imediately requires you to engage a few ships. After some dialogue, it is back to engaging the enemies once again. Controls wise, flight simulator fans would be familiar with the 360 degree aspect of the game. But in actual gameplay, remove the space settings and replace the ships with propeller planes, and you could jolly well be playing a World War One flight Sim. Another thing that marred my experience was the lack of save points between levels, which would not be a problem if each level did not last a minimum of 20 minutes. Imagine flying around and blasting the Romulans for close to an hour only to make one mistake towards the end and having to restart the entire battle again.
Given the huge undertaking of having five legendary Captains involved in one game, I was disappointed at the lack of Special Features to mark this momentous occassion. Even if one guessed that all five actors rcorded their roles at different times, it would be nice to hear them talk about their Star Trek experiences, and given the way the Star Trek franchise has slipped in popularity in recent years, hear their thoughts on the matter too. All in all, Legacy is nice filler for Trekkies in need of some fresh blood, but one hopes that the sequel, if any, will be able to beam fans up for a much more fulfilling experience.
