Hands On: Star Trek: Legacy
A good Star Trek game in development? Make it so!
Tags: Star Trek: Legacy Categories: PC Previews, Previews, Xbox 360 Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 29th, 2006
Star Trek: Legacy is the only game (so far) to bring the entire franchise together. Players will command virtually every televised Enterprise from the series and possibly a few other key ships.
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The developers are working closely with Rick Nobbs, one of the top Star Trek modelers to ensure that the ships look correct. Additionally, every ship and class will have its own handling as special features, as one would expect. Voyager can land on planets, the Defiant is quick and overpowered, etc. While visual details of creating ships is nice, what really makes the game stand out visually is the attention to detail when they are damaged. Specific decks can be made out though the holes in the hull.
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One scenario we were presented with was that the space station Deep Space 9 was under attack by Romulans. Players heard the call from Commander Nerys as this takes place after Sisko’s death. The player arrives and begins to encounter the Romulans with a little Kingon backup when a Borg cube arrives. Then all bets are off and everybody allies themselves to get rid of the common menace.
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Targeting is done by scrolling up or down on the Dpad or manually with the left thumbstick. Players can switch ships at the touch of a button from within their fleet as well as go to an overhead tactical map to get a view of the scene. This works out fine, but the Xbox 360 control pad has a horrible Dpad (being just a circle instead of an actual directional pad) so it will take some getting used to. PC gamers will have a bit easier of a time.
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The story starts with Archer and centers on him finding some remnants of Borg technology that were left behind as seen in the film Star Trek: First Contact. The main focus will be, however, of Kirk & Picard. After a handful of missions with Archer and his crew, the story fast forwards to early Original Series era with a young Kirk and the Constitution class Enterprise for a couple of missions. Then another few missions with the Constitution “refit”(think Star Trek II era) then it’s another jump in time to the Next Generation.
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Picard initially is brought into the story on the Stargazer, and not the Enterprise, which should be exciting for fans that are looking for a bit more back-story to one of the more iconic figures in the Star Trek pantheon. Then it’s Enterprise E time after Sisko has entered the wormhole when Deep Space Nine ended. For those that aren’t following the timeline, that’s well over a couple hundred years of story to weave and get right, since this isn’t just dealing with one ship and crew or series of events.
Players will have access to the Defiant, which was the ship originally brought to the Deep Space Nine station which was captained by Sisko, as well as Voyager, since this latter portion of the game will take place after Voyager has reached Earth from it’s time in the Delta Qaudrant.
For those keeping track, confirmed storyline ships that players will absolutely be playing as part of the story are:
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Archer’s Enterprise NX
Kirk’s Constitution Class Enterprise
Kirk’s Constitution Refit Enterprise
Picard’s Stargazer
Picard’s Galaxy Class Enterprise D
Picard’s Galaxy Class Enterprise E
That means Defiant and Voyager are not part of the overall story, and while players will have access to those ships in order to aid in missions, they aren’t required. At least not yet. This is where we get into what we know about the story, as well as voice actors.
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There is the chance that Sisko will be available as well as Janeway, but those voice actors have not yet been secured. As a matter of fact, no announcements have been made with regards to any of the voice actors. Naturally the developers want the main missions to have their primary captains and that could cost quite a bit of money. We all know that Patrick Stewart is not adverse to having his voice and likeness used in videogames. He does, of course, come with a hefty fee. William Shatner should relish in the chance to ham it up again as Kirk, again with another hefty fee.
How much money is left over to go chasing after more of the Star Trek captains and their willingness to participate may even affect which missions do get included. I imagine that if Kate Mulgrew and Avery Brooks were to appear in the game then players would be piloting the ships of Janeway and Sisko. That’s all still being finalized.
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There are some unlockable battles that may make an appearance. We were treated to a demonstration of a classic battle between Kahn and the Enterprise as we saw in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Unfortunately, it isn’t part of the game, but was used for demonstration purposes. If there is time to get the refinements down it could be an unlockable bonus along with several other key scenarios from the Star Trek history.
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When engaging the enemy, it will be important to keep track of the various ships under your command. When having given a command to attack, the ships will keep attacking until they are destroyed. Granted, players can “take command” of that ship and perform repairs, adjust shield levels, etc. but the attack command will be followed absolutely (as will retreat, cover me, etc.).
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It will be possible to play the game two ways. There’s the “traditional” action game mode where the camera is close in on the action with the ship you are directly in control of centered on the screen. The other way is to “pull back” and not play in “third person” mode, just go to the strategic map to get through mission. This allows for both action gamers and strategy minded gamers to get the most out of the game.
Additionally, there will be multiplayer, where everybody has command of their own fleet of 4 different ships. Details on this, however, are a bit early right now.
Star Trek fans that are looking for a fix should relish in this game when it is released. So far everything looks promising.
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Tags: Star Trek: Legacy
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 29th, 2006 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews, Xbox 360 Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
