Video Games : Star Trek: Tactical Assault (Nintendo DS)

Rating: - Very good...

I'm very impressed with this game. I read a few so-so reviews on other sites so I was hesitant at first but now I've bought it i'm glad I did.

The idea of the game is quite basic; You are a starship captain (either Federation or Klingon) and must fly your ship through space taking part in ship-to-ship space combat. Its great fun! You can either play in two campaigns (One Federation, the other Klingon) in which you pilot your ship through the solar system encountering other alien races and either resolving differences the diplomatic way or blasting them to bits....or there is also a 'skirmish' mode which essentially lets you get straight into the fight in which you can also command Romulan, Orion or Gorn ships of various classes (Destroyer, Frigate, Cruiser etc) the controls are tricky at first but quite easy to use once you get the gist of how the game works.

What I particularly like about the game is that it isn't just a typical mindless shoot-em-up like alot of other games. You can actually hail other ships in the area and choose what you wish to say. If you want to try and avoid a fight you can be charming or if you want to fight you can easily say the wrong thing and all hell breaks loose! As the game progresses you can upgrade your current ship or you can unlock new ones. All the classes of ship are accurate with regards to the Star Trek designs which is a big plus for Trekkies out there who own DS's. You cannot just fly into a fight and expect to win hands down you must use tactics and careful planning to win. Not only do you have to hit your enemy accurately to damage them you have to get through their shields first whilst preventing them from damaging your own shields too much.

I would say that the game could be improved in a few minor ways. Firstly if the characters that spoke to you had voices....the writing appears on the screen telling you whats being said but there are no voices speaking which I think is a bit naff. Also you cannot name your captain or your ship which would be a nice little addition to the more creative players....Lastly I think there could be more ship classes and alien races featured in the game. A game like this with the Borg, Jem'Hadar or Cardassians would be a must-own game for Star-Trek fans! Perhaps the sequel will feature these....

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Rating: - Red alert, all hands battle stations!
From past experience I know most Star Trek games can be quite difficult to master, but this one was so good my DS had to be confiscated to make me come off it! The game play is excellent, you can hail or scan ships, change alerts: red, yellow or green, and shoot klingons out of existence!
But most interesting is that when you hail a ship, what you choose to say will affect the outcome of a mission. If you are talking to a klingon bird of prey, you don't say "Can't we talk this over?" because the responce you get will be a volley of disrupters! Some missions are easy, others are very hard. However when you finish flying Federation ships, you move on to the klingon part of the game. (Much more fun!) Or if you can't wait, go into skirmish mode and anihilate three federation dreadnoughts, spending half your time cloaked. Anyone who loves strategy games and shoot em up's, should buy this game now!

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Rating: - Good but...
Overall this is a good game, has a nice enough story to follow and good action thrown in. But its main problem as a Trekkie is that the damage is unfairly balanced, for example you can be smashing an enemies hull to pieces and nothing, but when they get through to your hull then you might as well start the level again because you won't survive, also it can get annoying when every single enemy ship is firing at you constantly even though you may be part of a large fleet, so overall good but it can get annoying after a while.