Klingons on the starboard bow
'This is the Kobayashi Maru, 19 periods out of Altair Six . . . we have struck a gravitic mine and have lost all power.' Any avid Trekkie will recognise that quote from the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, spoken during a test/training mission where the freighter Kobayashi Maru is used to bait the Enterprise into a death trap.
It is a test designed to build character and all navy cadets are required to take it.
Star Fleet Command (SFC) is the long-awaited computer game based on the board war game Star Fleet Battles (SFB).
SFC gives you a shot at testing your own character in the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Though some of the game design differs between SFB and SFC, if you are an SFB fan looking for a faithful adaptation of your favourite board game, then this game delivers.
SFC is a real-time, tactical space-war game. You captain a star ship - on two-dimensional plane that is a hold-over from the board-game origins - and fight out space battles using your favourite ships.
SFC is definitely not an action game like X-Wing, where you 'fly' in space and fight enemy ships while furiously pressing the fire button - this is a cerebral exercise in space battle tactics.
With the exception of the photon torpedo, weapon damage is based on range and each weapon has its own characteristics.
Being skilled in SFC means balancing the power generated from your warp engines between your movement and your weapon arming. Game play is very fast and most battles last less than 15 minutes, making this a great game to play out battle scenarios in ship-to-ship combat.
If you are a fan of the TV series or the movies, your favourite ships will be the Federation heavy cruisers, Klingon D-7s, Romulan War Eagles or Gorn cruisers. Fans of SFB will recognise some other ships: Lyran Bengal Tiger Command Cruisers and Hydran Lord Marshals.
Space may be empty, but this game is full of rough edges. SFC definitely has a rushed-out-the-door feel to it. The game does not save skirmish settings, so settings must be manually reset every time.
The campaign game is said to be a dynamic universe Dynaverse. Don't be fooled by the fancy name, it just means that you will play a series of random missions. It is even possible for you to end up fighting Lyrans while deep in Klingon territory, duh! The game interface is cumbersome.
I don't fault the game developers much though, since I don't think it possible to build an interface that would easily allow you to control the helm, security, weapons, tractor beams, mines and electronic warfare of a ship on a single keyboard.
While you can have up to three ships in your fleet during the campaign, the cumbersome interface makes fleet tactics in this game unwieldy.
The graphics are good enough to satisfy any Star Trek fan. For players of SFB, think of SFC as a dream come true.
If you have never heard of SFB or you are not a Trekkie then you would be better off spending your gaming dollars elsewhere.
The game costs $260.
