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 - A frustrating holiday rush job console port As a user on the game's forum called it, a "take the money and run" holiday PC release of an unfinished console port. A frustrating simple shooter. GRAPHICS: I tried this game because of the words "stunning graphics". The results were mixed. While the game can sometimes be beautiful, its sometimes not a big improvement over Bridge Commander. There are smoother models, planets have glowing halos, dust clouds, etc, but many of the ships are too plain and unrealistic. The Borg cubes, for example, are just sad. Plus populated solar systems where planets are only 5 miles in diameter, 30 miles apart, and don't orbit anything. CONTROLS: The keyboard layout was ok with me, but layout doesn't matter when the controls don't seem to work properly. Good luck targeting ships, and keeping them targeted, when your ship decides to lose interest in them for no reason. Be ready to buy a new keyboard after desperately cramming keys trying to get ships and weapons to do what they should. The overhead tactical map, crucial to the game, is nearly unuseable because of mouse-control flaws. And some of the the sparse in-game tutorial instructions still refer to game console paddle controls rather than PC controls, further proof of how rushed the game was. STRATEGY: The main strategy is opening a menu of 5 ship areas you can repair, clicking on what is damaged, which you have to do for each ship one at a time as they won't start repairs themselves. If you want to get really technical you can scoot a slider to move power from engines to weapons or hull. The "Subsytem Targeting" is too difficult. To see mission Objectives you have to ESC out of the battle to the game menu, click on the Objectives button fighting sluggish mouse movement, exit that twice to get back to the game. You can't save the game during a mission so after an hour of struggling with poor controls a message pops up saying "Mission Has Failed" and you spend another hour getting back to where you were while being forced through lengthy in-game cut-scenes over and over. This is an old tactic for making a short game seem longer. Don't expect to issue interesting or complex commands to your ships, or any role-playing, this is a very simple shooter, and cannot compare to Klingon Academy in depth of control. I never tried multiplayer, the complaints scared me away. MARKETING: The PC version of this game was rushed out for the holidays unready in a smoke screen of "Wow! All five captains!". Personally, most of the Star Trek tv casts of the past 20 years have the combined acting talent of the Taco Bell chihuahua. As for the captains, you never even see them, they are just voices that probably took 2 minutes apiece to quickly read through a page of script that was probably later spliced into the rest of the dialog. Some of the additional voice actors are even worse. I have great appreciation for the past works of Dorothy Fontana who did the storyline for the game, but I was so busy being frustrated by the gameplay I didn't notice the storyline much. The musical score is nice and lends to the game though. Maybe this is a good game for a gaming console but it wasn't ready to be released for the PC, and not on a premium PC game pricing schedule. At least they didn't stoop to foul language, gore, and nudity like some companies do when they know their product isn't what it should be. Rating: - PC Version Overrated. XBox GoodSon is a trek fan and has most known trek PC game, does mods the whole nine yards. I even upgraded his PC video card in anticipation. According to him, through research, after the buy, this was an underdeveloped version of the XBox game (very good according to the blogs), and is not happy with it at all. He found one blog that the player actually threw it into the street and let a car run over it. Again, not happy. Shame on the company for doing a quick knock-off just to meet a release schedule. Purchased Encounters, a quick shootem up, which I even play, and he likes this cheaper game better. Rating:  - Not a bad gameThis game requires a fast modern graphics card. It did not play well on my nvidia FX5200. Being able to play the ships that you have seen on the shows and movies is awesome. My personal favorite is Voyager, because she is fast and easy to control. Rating:  - Its not worth it in my opinionUnless you are a die-hard startrek fan i wouldnt recommend buying this. It is a short game with some bugs. In my opinion the replay value is not that great either. Rating:  - Legacy of DisappointmentStar Trek Legacy had so much potential. For the first time ever, a Star Trek game had the voices of all five captains as well as ships and missions from all the eras of the television franchise. But this game falls flat on its face for the PC. In short, they released an untested, unfinished game with a myriad of problems which ruin any chance at having a truly enjoyable gaming experience. There is a reason the Amazon price has already dropped almost ten dollars just a month after release. So let me start with the good. The ships are pretty. The sounds are neat. Now, what's wrong with Star Trek Legacy. Multiplayer cannot even be called functional. The game lobby is a joke--you have virtually no information on who else is online or which games you can join--the game list displays games that have already launched, games that are full, and games that have already cancelled the same way, as having one out of four slots full and awaiting more players. You can't see what options have been selected for it (system, number of ships, or even the era). And good luck actually getting connected to one. The single player campaign, which had the most promise, again falls short. The original story seems like it would have been interesting--if it had made it into the game. The game was cut from 21 missions to 15, first of all. (And falling by the wayside were any missions featuring DS9 and VOY, another major disappointment for me--how is it that an awful series like ENT should get 1/3 of this game while DS9 and VOY get nothing?) There are no cutscenes to explain the plot. And no characters make an appearance. Yes, you have the captains voices, but they only appear as talking ships. This gets old and rather comical really fast. The gameplay (when you can manage the clunky PC controls) is extremely simple. Point and shoot. Rinse, repeat. You get the idea. Skirmish is perhaps the most "fun" and seems the closest to being something like a finished product. Still, you can't even select which ships you want to fight against. You can only choose the race of your opponents and allies. That's it. Most battles are over fairly quickly, and there is little strategy involved. This isn't even going into the many technical bugs and issues which have been reported at length on other sites, from game spot to the game's own forums. Bethesda and Mad Doc should be ashamed that they released this product in such an unfinished state. Save your money and don't buy Star Trek Legacy.
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