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 Home -> Reviews -> Starfleet Command II: Empires at War
Starfleet Command II: Empires at War By John "Award" Del Percio, 12/23/2000
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Developer :Taldren
Publisher :Interplay
Release Date :Late December 2000
Demo Available : No
Table of Contents

· Introduction
· Closer Look
· Facts
· Final

Logic Clearly Dictates that This Should be Required Training at the Academy

For Starfleet Command II, there are two groups of people who will be interested: Those who are rabid fans of SFC1, and those who have never heard of the game. In both of those classifications are two other groups: Trekkies, and non-Trekkies. For all of them, I would definitely recommend SFC2. For fans of SFC1 and SFB, SFC2 is the next logical step, and I likely don't have to tell you how much of a difference the subtle (and not so subtle) changes make in the game, and why it makes the world of difference in the fun-factor. For those that never heard of the game, it's about time you got into it, if you like tactical simulations, this is definitely the one to own, no matter if you're a Trekkie or not. Starfleet Command II is most definitely the best tactical sim, and definitely the most intricate that I have ever seen, and will likely see any time soon.

Rating

Personal Note

Graphics - Sound - Gameplay - Depth - Multiplayer  Reviewed by John Del Percio
GRAPHICS
97 %

It's not exactly the most advanced 3D engine in the world, but it gets the job done, and looks good doing it. I only wish you could get a more 3D perspective out of it. There are multiple camera positions, but none that really look "real." Though for the type of game it is, I think looking at it "real" would get you killed. Just pretend what you're looking at is a sensor sweep. Nevertheless, it's a fairly nice looking engine.

SOUND
98 %

Well, the music is excellent, All voice-overs, including George Tekai's are excellent, and the general sound effects are well orchestrated. There is one minor flaw that it would take a hard-core Trekkie to figure out, but some of the sounds are the wrong sounds. Granted, it sound far better the way it is, but as a prime example, the Red and Yellow Alert sounds are stolen from the Enterprise-D, rather than the proper Enterprise-A sound.

GAMEPLAY
100 %

If the past three pages didn't convey this point, I don't know what will. The gameplay plays just like you're on a starship, and requires just as much thought. It should be required training at the Academy, let alone installed on everyone's computers.

DEPTH
100 %

Without a doubt, it is one of the deepest games to ever exist. Not so much in the storyline area, where depth scores are normally derived from, but in overall complexity and intricacy. It is certainly unrivaled at it's ability to reveal a new strategy even years later.

MULTIPLAYER
99 %

For most avid fans of SFB and SFC1, multiplayer is the whole reason to own the game. Definitely, just as in SFC1, it carries through. You can go on for hours pummeling away at each others shields, and for two extremely good players to go head to head, prepare to be there for some time. It's like watching Kahn v. Kirk in real life. I take one point away from a slight instability in the multiplayer (and in the game overall), where it has a tendency to crash, though that may be patched relatively soon. SFC/2 is a really hard game to find bugs and patch them as there is just so much detail to the game, that means all the more places for something to go wrong. I'm certainly glad I'm not the one who has to track down the bugs.



SFC2 certainly upheld my expectations, though I thought it would have looked a bit nicer than the first, I'm not really complaining much. Two points you may find of interest, though. The first is that I'm not sure why they marked the system requirements as being so high for the game. I installed it to test LAN multiplayer on my T-bird along with my PII-233. The game runs just as well on the 233 as SFC1 did, and nearly as well as on the T-bird. The second point is if get the game and have no sound, that "lower the hardware acceleration" fix for the SoundBlaster Live! in the Readme.txt isn't just for the Live!. If you don't have a Live! and don't have sound in-game, check the sound tab in the DXDiag program and lower hardware acceleration by one notch there (if you have it), that fixed it for me on my SB16 clone in the 233. Finally, I would like to nominate SFC2 for Best Simulation for the 2000 GameVisions Top Pupil awards. This also wraps up all the 2000 games to apply for the 2000 awards, so expect to see them soon. And if you want more info on SFC2 directly from the developers mouths, check out the chat with Taldren we held when the game went gold.

Overall Rating

 



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