Star Trek: Legacy [PC]

Boasting a voice cast that'll have Star Trek fans already reaching for their wallets, Star Trek: Legacy still doesn't much to dispel the true legacy of Star Trek games: they're all too often a disappointment. Bearing more resemblance to a squad-based shooter than anything else, the PC version of Legacy has clearly taken a back seat to the Xbox 360 version during development, resulting in a game that's replete with missed opportunities and disappointments.

Legacy's missions start in the era of the Scott Bakula, Enterprise shows, and continue through each major incarnation of the franchise, including the original series, the movies, and the Next Generation. Although that spans a considerable length of time, Legacy comes up with a convincing plot thread to tie together its missions across the whole history of Star Trek, one epoch at a time.

What's best of all about this approach, of course, is that it allows fans of any Star Trek series to enjoy the game. No matter which you prefer, you'll find missions that star your favorite ships and (for the captain, at least) your favorite actor. Shatner, Stewart, Bakula et. al. all star, and add their distinct tones to briefings and in-game events. The rest of the cast isn't so notable, but all the same it doesn't get much better than this for Trekkies.

You could be forgiven for being underwhelmed with Legacy's visuals at first, but that's mostly because, for some inexplicable reason, it ships with the brightness wound up way too high. Crank it down - don't hold back - and the shading springs to life, revealing Legacy to be eye-candy of entirely acceptable quality. Frame rates could be better, considering the game doesn't have any scenery to speak of, but on a halfway capable machine you should be able to ramp the options up all the way and enjoy the photon torpedo and phaser light-show.

Of particular note are the damage effects. If you've watched the show more than a few times, you'll know how the effects staff delights in blowing ships apart in spectacular and satisfying ways, usually involving engine nacelles falling off. Legacy, if anything, goes overboard on the visuals, tending to show your ship bursting into flames and full of holes even when only slightly damaged. We'd swear, too, that some vessels developed mysterious extra nacelles when being exploded. Still, it certainly adds to the drama.

So no doubt the Trek faithful will find much to salivate over, but hard-core space simmers won't get on with the game so well. To avoid the complexities of dealing with combat in all three dimensions, you're confined to a plane with only limited up and down motion. You can't loop a spaceship, for example. It's a bit of a shame, but with up to three other friendly ships to keep track of you might be grateful for a little simplicity here and there. Surprisingly, the feel of the game almost has more in common with generic first-person shooters than space combat sims.

Once upon a time, the Trek ethos was more focused on avoiding combat and encouraging diplomacy, and less on just blasting everything in sight - but hey, that probably wouldn't make much of an action game. Instead, Legacy's missions are straightforward kill 'em all romps, occasionally with a more complex goal like an escort or a sector sweep thrown in for variety.

Typically, you're given command of up to four ships, which you can buy and sell in between levels. Chalk up another mark on the "not very Star Trek" board, but again it's probably a necessary compromise. During gameplay, you can flip between vessels with a tap of a key and issue orders from an overhead map. However, it's often unclear whether you're issuing targeting orders to just the ship you're controlling, or to the whole squad. Surprisingly, there's no mid-mission save, and the difficulty can be on the stiff side -- Legacy players are in for some frustrating repetition on the tougher levels.

You might find some respite in the skirmish or multiplayer modes, but they come with their share of irritations too. The in-game server is basic, to say the least, and you'll do well to find a decent online game. And while the mode selection is nearly as sparse, we can't help but give the game kudos for the chaotic cooperative scenario where you defend Deep Space Nine against wave after wave of attacking Borg.

Star Trek Legacy is being released on the 360 as well, and when playing the PC game you're left in no doubt about which one took the lead in development. Perhaps the biggest give-away is the faintly astonishing fact that some of the game's hint text still refers to the 360 controls. In gameplay terms, the most serious issue is that there's no way to remap your keys (although if you're handy with a text editor you can edit the game's files and do it the hard way) and the overhead map is ludicrously insensitive to scrolling movements. In short, the controls don't feel like they were designed with the PC in mind at all.

It's therefore a testament to the allure of Legacy's source material that the neglected-feeling PC version manages to withstand this catalogue of missteps. Despite its long, long list of lazy omissions it's still a game that Trek fans will enjoy -- if only for the voices, fire-photon-torpedoes ambiance, and graphical effects. They'll just have to grit their teeth while they do it. For the rest of us, it's another in a lengthy list of promising looking Star Trek games that, sadly, just don't quite work.