Star Trek Legacy Review (X360)

Star Trek Legacy is truly any Trek fans’ dream come true. You get to control the Enterprise from the different eras as well as many more ships from not only the Federation, but the Klingons, Romulans, and Borg as well. Legacy offers up just the right balance of sim and arcade gameplay that makes it just a bit easier to slide into the captain’s chair than, say, the Starfleet Command series. It isn’t without some issues, but overall Star Trek Legacy should make Trek fans very happy.

The story is one of the coolest aspects of Star Trek Legacy because it manages to tie all of the various Star Trek eras together without stretching too thin or becoming too unbelievable. The main story is about a Vulcan scientist who learns about the Borg in the very early days of the Federation and figures out a way to eventually become the Borg queen. You first meet her while playing as Captain Archer in the NX-01 and eventually move on to Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway as the scientist runs across their ships as she roams around the galaxy. Along the way, you’ll fight it out with Klingons, Romulans, and the Borg and in another nice touch, all of the different ship classes and designs from each era are present and accounted for. It is very cool to see the evolution and advancement of the ships as the move from era to era. The Federation is also very well represented with all of the main ships from the series along with pretty much every other design out there.

The gameplay in Star Trek Legacy is a mix of detailed simulation and easy-to-play arcade. You see everything in a third-person view where your ship is in the center of the screen and you have full 360 degree camera control to try and get the best view. The gist of the game is that you are trying to maneuver your ship in order to get in the best position to fire your weapons. This aspect of the game is fairly straightforward and easy and quite a bit of fun, but there are also more advanced controls as well. You have full control over the speed of your ship and you can even go to warp if the battle becomes too hot. You also can adjust how the power is distributed in your ship between the shields, engines, and weapons, and changing this on the fly in the middle of a battle can be vital to your success. You also have scanners and transporters and you can hail other ships to try and solve your problems diplomatically. To make your head spin just a little bit more, you will also be able to build a fleet of up to four ships that you have to order around and keep track of during battles or you can switch to direct control of them when you need to. Thankfully, the controls for all of these actions are well mapped to the Xbox 360 controller and it all feels pretty good once you learn how to do everything. In some missions, there will also be repair yards available so that you can fix your ship in the middle of a battle, and managing how and when you use this with your fleet is very important. All in all, there is a lot to do in Star Trek Legacy and it all works well.

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