Title: Star Trek: Legacy
Genre: RTS/Adventure
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Mad Doc Software LLC
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: Q4 2006
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We all live in a dream that becomes real when we call it "Life".
Sometimes we share this dream with another person, and we call it "Love".
It often happens to wake up, and we usually call it "death".
However, not everyone wakes up, someone is able to enjoy the luxury of immortality that comes from the sharing of his dream with the whole humanity: Tolkien, for example, has shared "The Lord of the Rings", Franck Herbert has created "Dune", George Lucas has seen in "Star Wars" his and our Universe.
No matter if you are male or female, keen on FPS or RPG, if you follow us in this preview, I promise you that you will learn how to feel Gene Roddenberry's dream...a dream called "Star Trek".
"Madness has no purpose or reason, but it may have a goal."
(Spock, Star Trek: TOS)
This year will be the 40th birthday of the Star Trek franchise: a sad birthday if we think that, for the first time since years, no television series is being broadcast, no film is in production and some key actors of the classic series died (last was "Scotty").
Given all this, the news that a videogame with "Star Trek: Legacy" as title will be released before Christmas is able to make the causal gamer happy and to scare all trekkers who won't be able to bear a bad copy of their preferred universe. It is pointless to say that expectations on this title are really high and, as it often happens, the line between failure and success is very thin.
"Will you stop interrupting me? I mean, this is hardly a time to be teaching you the true nature of the universe."
(Q, "Star Trek: TNG")
"Star Trek: Legacy" is being developed by Mad Doc, supervised by Bethesda Softworks, and this certainly is an important news, because Bethesda does not need any presentation as its masterpiece series "The Elder Scrools" has a bright new chapter on Xbox 360 and PCs: Oblivion. On the other hand, Mad Doc is the software house responsible for the development of "Empire Earth II" and the good "Star Trek: Armada II".
With all this said, it could be easy to imagine that "Star Trek: Legacy" will be a Real Time Strategy game (RTS) which will take advantage of the great experience Mad Doc has in this type of videogames, of a superb physics engine very similar to the famous Havok engine used in Oblivion by Bethesda and of the 40 years of "Star Trek" franchise with the possibility to use quotations, original designs and official characters.
"Star Trek: Legacy" will not "live" in a particular Star Trek era but, using the franchise potential, it will cross all 5 series eras: Enterprise, the Original Series, The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine.
Hence, in developer intents there is the idea of allowing us to develop through eras with all its implicit possibilities: the chance to know captain Archer, or the mighty Kirk or "sir" Picard with their own technologies and wars. All this will be obtained via an almost perfect reconstruction of Star Trek universe, starting from the more than 60 star-ships present in the final game, and continuing with dozens of races, enemies and friends.
"Truth is in the observer's eyes."
(Guinan, "Star Trek: TNG")
In the single-player campaign we will have the opportunity to join the "Federation", starting from its dawn and, as admirals, we will take part to strategic decisions essential to oppose Romulan's offensive, as well as Klingon's one, with the inestimable help of our pointed-ear friends, the Vulcanians. In the course of the adventure, we will run across new eras and technologies, and always more powerful and better organised enemies: could we have lived without the Borgs, the Dominion and the Cardassians?
Even if our rank is "Admiral", we will not be in command of huge fleets, but only of a little task-force made of 4 ships of different classes: even if this choice can appear very limiting of our possibilities, Mad Doc has explained that "Star Trek: Legacy" has to be a real strategic game, not the classic arms-race which is the cornerstone of every RTS developed so far. With only 4 ships at our disposal, no loss is acceptable, no direct engagement can be faced without the correct strategy, and we will always have to coordinate our movements and attacks with the rest of the fleet in order to rapidly strike and then retreat, while surrounded by epochal battles never seen in a videogame before.
Hence, it is important to note that in this game, the strategic stamp is very marked and it reflects also the possibilities given by the good physics engine. Besides the fact that during fights we will remember that space is in 3-D, we will also have the opportunity to take advantage of the enemy weak points: shooting the ship engines will compel the enemy to go drift, removing the life support will mean "death" for the crew and destroying the ship shields will be equal to "one shot left". Moreover, there will be tons of possibilities thanks to the different technologies we will meet across different eras: the tractor beam can be used to obstacle enemy ships and beaming our army into an enemy ship will be the easiest way to conquer without destroying. However, here lies also the real uncertainty of this game: the warp drive. Mad Doc already tried its implementation in "Star Trek: Armada II", but the final result was the total useless of warp drive during fights, restricting its use to travel fast across the galaxy.
Concerning the graphic aspect, "Star Trek: Legacy" has already proved to be a good title in several screenshots: however, since Mad Doc and Bethesda decided to maintain the series spirit, they've decided to maintain also the visual appearance of the ships. Hence, there should be no disappointment when crossing from the 1st to the 2nd era we will face a drastic drop of coolness in ships graphics as Archer's NX-01 is graphically above Kirk's "older" Enterprise.
Leaving out this choice, which will turn up someone's nose and make someone else happy, we will face a game with a great graphic impact. Every ship has been modelled with more than 4000 polygons, every nebula will be particle, every planet has been perfectly reproduced and, of course, everything will be strictly in scale: when, proud of your Enterprise E, you'll face a Borg cube and you'll feel dizzy trying to find out where your ship is (just a point in the screen), you'll understand what I mean for "strictly in scale".
"Fate...protects fools, children, and ships named Enterprise."
(W. Riker, "Star Trek: TNG")
If the single-player campaign is not enough, we will be able to access to multiplayer modes playing the part of almost every faction we've meet: Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Borgs.
Online multiplayer is huge and the "Death Match" mode will not be the only "classic" one: in fact, Mad Doc has stated that its wish is to develop a "mission" mode and a "series" mode which will allow the gamer to play with, or against, other people following an historical path.
Final Comment - "Beam me up, Scotty!"
(James T. Kirk, Star Trek. TOS)
"Star Trek: Legacy" has all the necessary requirements to become an exceptional game: it is developed by experienced and awarded software houses, it has great graphic and physic engines and it can take advantage of the greatest sci-fi franchise ever. Besides, a couple of uncertainty regarding the implemented AI and the single-player plot are well opposed by a multi-player mode that will probably become the icing on the cake of this game.
Thus, "Star Trek: Legacy" announces itself as one of the better outsider title in development for Xbox 360, also hoping developers will not use the warp drive to postpone the September release.
Original article by David Famà, XboxWay Staff