The best way I can summarize Star Trek: Legacy is that it is a game of great conflicts. What one sees on the surface is some great, if not massive potential; since we’ve already seen the Star Trek universe from so many angles, the average fan can’t help but be intrigued to see how modern-day technology is applied to put the series in a new direction – not to mention all of the possibilities and lessons learned by the modding community and the desires of the fanbase. However, upon actually obtaining the game and breaking past the shrink-wrapped interior to examine the real crux of the title, I found that Star Trek: Legacy is not only lacking, but effectively trips over itself at every possible opportunity. Which is something it pains me to say, because this was one game I was very much anticipating shelving with my other favored Star Trek releases, like Klingon Academy or Elite Force.

Star Trek: Legacy takes a new, interesting storyline approach, by not focusing on one specific timeframe of the universe, but instead encompassing all of them into a singular campaign. The game starts in the “Enterprise” era with the basic NX-class cruisers, and gradually shifts up into the series until a final set of missions that take place just after the Nemesis movie. Linking all of these missions together is the focus on a single entity – namely an elusive Vulcan scientist, who is so hell-bent on a secretive project she is working on, that her efforts end up causing chaotic side effects throughout the generations. The storyline manages to be presented in a way that doesn’t interfere or overlap with the existing Star Trek storylines (laden with plot holes as they are), and also provide some insight into certain background aspects of the universe – assuming what’s seen in this game is canon, of course.

With an approach like this, wouldn’t it be fantastic to get an all-inclusive package that presents a wide variety of unique situations across the various time periods to challenge the player? Mainly, what I was expecting was some very distinct gameplay differences on how the various eras played out, especially the little things, like how the “Enterprise” era had more of a reliance on grappling hooks than tractor beams, and just a more creative approach to the vast technological changes between the various timelines. But instead, what we end up getting is a campaign that only provides a brief fling into each time period, with all of them being based on almost exactly the same gameplay styles.

Before clarifying what I mean by this, let me first describe Legacy’s gameplay in a little more detail. The game is based exclusively on a third-person starship combat model, where you assume command of up to four ships under your battlegroup. In between missions you accumulate points which can be used to purchase newer and better ships (and interestingly when a given time era ends and you switch into another, such as going from the Kirk-era into the Picard-era, most of your older ships carry over and only the lead “Command” ship is automatically upgraded), and then take real-time command of the team to accomplish the objectives set forth. Some example scenarios involve stealing a Klingon Bird of Prey as a prelude to learning more on a new weapon they are creating, or fending off a Borg invasion while a system is evacuated. Unfortunately, once I actually started playing these missions in detail, the experience fell apart much quicker than I would have preferred.

My biggest beef with the game is just how “limited” it feels for a game so focused on combat. Sure, it’s always great to watch gigantic starships duking it out (and this is always something I’ll be a strong proponent of) – but Star Trek: Legacy doesn’t really offer much of an experience beyond “fly at enemy, shoot, repeat”. But wait, what about the novelty of being in command of a small fleet, and carrying out daring multi-pronged assaults? This would actually be really cool if the interface for this physically functioned. Currently, there are only two ways to issue orders to other ships in your fleet; either add individual vessels to your current “group” and give them the same order, or physically switch to that vessel and manually assigning it a new target, and then quickly switching back to your old ship and watching as it’s already deviated and chosen a new (generally useless) target to pursue while under automatic control. And that’s it. Augmenting the experience somewhat is a top-down tactical map accessible by the Tab button, but this doesn’t really offer any new fleet-control functions – and you can’t even assign multiple waypoints or patrol patterns. In fact, it’s a general challenge getting my fleet to do anything as a cohesive unit; the AI rarely thinks for itself in carrying out my orders, and half the time wouldn’t even carry out my move or warp commands properly.

Stifling the gameplay further is how Legacy likes to tease you with attractive options such as “Scan”, “Hail”, “Tractor”, “Transport”, etc – all accessible from a radial context-menu for a given target. The problem is that most of these commands do absolutely nothing unless the mission scripting dictates otherwise, negating an expected level of flexibility from the combat system – I’d love to see additional gameplay possibilities for boarding parties or creative use of tractor beams (just like most other Star Trek space titles released in the past), but for one reason or another it was chosen these options weren’t implemented. I can’t even really blame the game’s multi-platform configuration for this, as I really can’t see any reason why the same functionality couldn’t have carried over to the 360.

But the more I played Legacy, the more I realized that it the problems weren’t entirely the game’s fault – rather, it just seems to be suffering from a grossly incomplete development cycle. This is confirmed by the fact that not only are many features unreliable or just plain non-existent, but by the sheer lack of content too. I didn’t get an exact count of the number of missions in the game, but I’m pretty sure it was less than ten, and they sure as sin didn’t take very long to beat at all. My final comment after beating the game was “…that’s it?!”, which is never the sign of a well-designed campaign. Adding further to this feeling is the absence of promised missions, like the Wrath of Khan scenario demo’ed so prominently early in the game’s development, and the fact that one of the storyline-writers was apparently posting on the game’s own forums trying to give clarification to the campaign, because most of the cutscenes were inexplicably removed or changed (all that’s left of them is a series of semi-connected animated shorts available from an “Extras” section on the main menu).