Starfleet Command 3

Richard raises his shields and charges into this latest Star Trek title.

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When a game is released that's based on a film or other intellectual property there is often a tendency to proclaim its greatness if it merely manages to not be terrible. I take a somewhat different viewpoint. I feel that if a developer has such a wealth of material to draw inspiration from then the resulting game should be better than its counter parts. If done correctly the game should embody the essence of its source as well as great gameplay. Game such as Blade Runner, Aliens vs Predator 2 and of course Goldeneye are prime examples of this. Starfleet Command 3 from Taldren software comes close, so very close, to being such a classic. When you add up all the flaws though the result is more of a Nemesis than a Wrath of Khan.

The fact that this is the third major installment for the Starfleet Command series tells you that it's one of the few popular and successful Trek games. With the same developer at the helm, Taldren, it also tells you that people must think they are doing something right. The previous games dealt with the Kirk era but this time around we're in the home of the Next Generation. I preferred the style of the original ships but that's a matter of personal taste. By moving forward a generation they've given themselves some more freedom to change the game design. You now have four shield points where as before there were six. This aids the pace of the game as you no longer have to slow things down to ensure you hit the weak point. Shuttles have had their roles limited which keeps the focus on capital ship combat. Missiles have gone entirely and you can no longer beam mines out into space, all of which is more in-keeping with the show. So far so good then. In previous versions each race's interface had a distinctive look to it, like a Winamp/Media Player skin. Sadly a generic interface is used throughout which while making the game slightly easier to learn is less visually appealing.

The single player campaigns revolve around a new starbase called Unity One built by the Federation and the Klingons. You have the choice of playing through as either the Klingons, Romulans or the Federation and it's best to go through them in that order as suggested. Each campaign tells a different story that revolves around Unity One and its purpose. The style of each race is well used. Without giving away the plot the Klingon campaign deals with family honour, the Romulans contend with corruption, betrayal and subterfuge while the Federation wants to find out the truth behind the events. These are all well thought out and contain a large amount of voice acting to keep the universe alive. Patrick Stewart, Picard himself, narrates the Federation campaign which is especially enjoyable and you will even come across the Enterprise. It was also good to see that they've made the effort to include nice end sequences for each of the campaigns.

Combat between ships takes place on a two dimensional plane as before and involves out maneuvering your opponents and maximising your ships potential. You'll need to keep the enemy within the firing arcs of your weapon systems whilst making sure you keep your shields reinforced. Once you've managed to knock down a shield, you can target individual systems like the warp core, or if you prefer the personal touch beaming a team aboard to take it out. Romulan and Klingon ships can cloak and all ships can warp across the system to get into a fight, or get out of one. Cloaking is by no means a major strategic advantage as when engaging or disengaging the cloak your shields are down rendering you very vulnerable. Even tractor beams can be used in an interesting manner to stop the enemy escaping from your grasp or dragging an unsuspecting player into a black hole. The game offers you that 'sandbox' experience of giving you a host of controls and systems and letting you figure out the best strategy.

There are a few problems with the combat system though. At the beginning of a campaign when you have a small ship your weapons lack sufficient punch to do much damage to enemy ships. So you might break through the shields of a ship with a full volley, but by the time your weapons have recharged so will their shields making for a fairly long and uneventful engagement. You have a small pool of engineers to repair damaged systems but you can only use each one once. If a system is being repaired and gets hit your team will keep working away. So it's better to let your systems take heavy damage before you have them repaired, Geordie would not approve. You can adjust the speed of the game from 1 to 11 which is a totally unnecessary level of discreetness and should have been changed to simply slow, medium and fast. This timing system has been in place since the first title and isn't the only thing that seems unchanged.