Developer: Taldren
Publisher: Interplay
The original Starfleet Command was an acquired taste. Few games in recent memory were the recipients of such wildly diverse critical opinion. Some loved it. Some loathed it. Some found it so confusing that they were sure that the real 23rd century would be rolling around before they could master the incredibly obtuse interface.
I fit into the latter camp. As much as I was in love with the concept, as long as I'd been waiting for someone to bring the Star Fleet Battles board game to the PC, I forced myself to give up on that frustrating Kobayashi Maru scenario of a computer game before hitting my personal self-destruct button. Those with more patience might have found that the end results made the early angst worthwhile, but better games beckoned. I chalked this one up to the Star Trek curse that's ruined every game to sport pointed ears since 1993 and moved on, albeit a little regretfully.
Now, with the release of the sequel, I got to go back and try again. Unfortunately, "go back" is exactly what I had to do when playing Starfleet Command Volume II: Empires at War. There are so few real differences between the two games that it was hard to remember that I was supposed to playing a new title at times. The visuals are nearly identical, as is the feel and many of the disappointments. Some new irritants have been added as well—such as the online Dynaverse campaign, which was shipped DOA and will require heavy patching to work—making this follow-up arguably less of a product than the original.
Well, in some ways. Starfleet Command II remains a deep game, just like its predecessor. If you're looking for a strategic title that will absorb you for weeks while you learn its many complexities, there's no more worthwhile investment currently available at your local software store. At the same time, however, I have to doubt that even the most hardened grognard will bother with the troublesome interface long enough to discover the fulfilling gameplay. The menu system is needlessly complicated in almost every way. At the same time as the designers of other strategy series are tightening things up and streamlining control systems, the team who worked on this one at Taldren has ignored the trend and developed a scheme that's every bit as hard to figure out as the flashing lights on Spock's old science station.
For starters, the control panels still don't scale with the rest of the display. This makes playing at resolutions above 800x600 extremely difficult, since the buttons get progressively smaller. Boost things to the maximum of 1280x1024 and you'll be rewarded with some gorgeous combat sequences that are very difficult to control. It's hard to see what does what, and the individual buttons are so tiny and jammed together that it is very easy to mistake one for another or to simply miss one and hit its neighbor. Also, the interface still changes with each civilization. This provides a nice flavor and emphasizes the difference between races, but it can be very awkward to get used to, particularly since the tutorial missions are all with the Federation. Jumping from the USS Enterprise to the Gorns' GCS Reptilicon is quite a leap.