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Games

Title : Star Trek: Birth of the Federation
Developer : Microprose
Publisher : Hasbro
Certificate : E
Platforms : Windows
Year : 1999
Rating : 4.1667 for 6 reviewsAdd your own review
Reviewer : Adm Braden Rating : 3
Review : Finally, a Star Trek game that allows us who do not want to go blasting Romulans from space. I found this game quite nice, although a little slow and somewhat bad in regards to the "smart AI" as that you find that sometimes colonies will not build anything unless you tell them to build it, but apart from that, it is a good game.
Reviewer : Lamont Rating : 5
Review : This is one of if not the best Star Trek games made. The original game had its issues with the AI enemies not building large fleets or stations. The game gives you the ability to take any of the big 5 big races from your home system to controlling the entire quadrant. The turned based battles can be very exciting if you can get 50 or more ships in one fight. What really makes Birth of the Federation one of the best games is the mods. There are any number of mods that can increase the enemy AI and building habits. To adding more ships and weapons to the game. With the added mods this game jumps straight to the top of the Star Trek gaming list. Now if they would only make Birth of the Federation 2! Wait the game was so popular that a group of fans are already doing that themselves!
Reviewer : GTI Guy Rating : 4
Review : The game opens with the classic 'Star Trek' intro and players are treated to thinking that you are really building the Star Trek universe from scratch. The game play is very similar to any 'Civ' type games where you are building up colonies and solar systems to achieve one main goal: domination of the galaxy. The diplomacy element and how you go about your conquest is directly related to the race you choose and how you play out their strengths and weaknesses. Want to make the Federation into a war hungry race? Go right ahead. Want to try and out duel the Cardassian Empire when it comes to intel and espionage? It's your choice. Feel like taking the Klingons on in an unfair fight? Start building those battleships. For all of the pluses this game gets (for concepts, ships, game play, discovery and sticking to some pretty good Star Trek cannon) the part some play this game for: the battles, is lacking. Often one salvo and the battle is over. Anyone that has had to face the Borg knows what I mean. A little more in the way of control and length of the battles would have definitely bumped this game up in it's rating. However for the time this game came out and its approach I cannot fault it. If you want a good Star Trek based game and actually have the feel of being in control of the galaxy, then this game is for you.
Reviewer : Tos Rating : 4
Review : "Birth Of The Federation" is a turn based strategy game. For those who have not played this type of game before you issue orders, make decisions etc then end the turn. The PC will then work out the consequences of your choices and calculate the response of the opposing sides. You start the game with a choice of which race to play, the style of game you want to play will determine which race you choose. The Klingons have powerful ships and see nothing wrong with conquering other races by force. The Federation have equally powerful ships but your citizens won't be pleased if you send out your fleet on a mission of galactic conquest. The Romulans and Cardassians suffer from weaker ships (and fewer classes to build) but they are expert in the art of espionage and sabotage. Once you have made your choice it's time to build up your empire. The galactic map is filled with stars and planets (at first hidden) which once found you can colonize. Each system has a maximum population size which is determined by the number of rocky planets in each system. This means the systems with the most usable planets will become important hubs of your empire. They will have a larger work force which will build ships quicker (in fewer turns) giving you a vital edge over the enemy. Once you have established yourself and begin to explore you will come into contact with other life forms. Some of these minor races are open to relations with you, other are hostile, how you handle these aliens is up to you. You can bomb them back to the stone age from orbit and conquer them, wipe them out totally or even forge a lasting friendship resulting in them joining you. The latter is preferred as each race comes with a reasonable level of advancement and can give you boost early in the game. As well as these minor races you will sooner or later come across the other three major races from the beginning of the game. It's only a matter of time before your interests and theirs come into conflict and war is the result. Once two fleets come together you're taken to the 3D battle screen where you issue basic orders to your ships. Battles aren't all they could be but they can get interesting if they last more that two turns. Even the Borg can put in an appearance and cause havoc if you're unlucky enough. The ultimate goal is to con troll a certain % of the galaxy or to have conqured everyone else. Once that's done you can end the game or if you choose you can carry on. It's worth mentioning there have been times when rather quirky events have happened. Once I spent the bulk of the game (over 800 turns) isolated behind my boarders playing as the Romulans. I carved out a section of the map and took no action other than defending my boarders. When I had a rather impressive fleet of ships, an advanced technology level and a robust economy ready to take on the galaxy did I venture out. I was shocked to find out the galaxy had been decimated by the Borg. Apart from a few planets the bulk of space was barren. The game can be a great deal of fun and even has multi player support if you're lucky enough to know people who still play after all these years. On the flip side it can get very boring waiting 20+ turns for a building to be completed of for a ship to roll off the production line. There's also the tedium of watching over the development of a large empire making sure everything is running smoothly. "Birth of the Federation is an old game but a patch will allow the game to run on XP though I've not tried on Vista. As with all older games it won't appeal to many but there's no other Trek game like it out there and I hope there's a BOTF 2 one day.
Reviewer : beserene Rating : 4
Review : First of all: the game runs smoothly under XP, Vista, and Windows 7. On Vista+ you may need to google the correct settings, or just... ...install one of the most popular and well done mods like the "Ultimate Mod", or "Ultimate Dominion Mod". This game can be quite a lot of fun in the long run, especially with the mods of course, the balancing is ok, you pretty much got control over everything, plus the typical "ST feeling" is there. But now the real annoying part: - the manual battles are quite retarded and leak options, plus major bugs with mods / settings - the memory leak is driving me nuts. Even with newer PCs and best possible settings to avoid input lag, the turn calculation takes more and more time, till it becomes ridiculously high (depending on settings and pc around round 300-400 it takes more than a coffee break for one turn to end). There's sadly no hope that there ever will be some kind of solution for this. Still, the game is one of the best round based strategy games out there, plus the feel and very shiny mods.
Reviewer : Tinadrin Chelnor Rating : 5
Review : I cannot understate my love for this game. I absolutely love empire-building strategy games. And when this came out I literally lived BOTF. It was great to see a Star Trek based game like this, and it was in fact so awesome that there is/was a fan-based sequel (Supremacy?). I partook in that a bit, but last I know it was still in the early stages of development. I wasn't a great fan of the Intel side, I think it played too-large a part in games. It is good to have it play a part, but I think it should have been a little less significant. The battles weren't overly amazing, but then I play for the strategy and diplomacy, the battles are just extra fun when you decide to kick ass (or have your ass kicked). the Klingon or Romulans were by far the best to play (for me). I have Win 7 and it still works, and it also worked on my old laptop which was Win Vista, so all good stuff. After moving to Scotland for a year and then back, I lost my game, and sought it out on E-Bay because it was such a great game to play. Anyway, I would recommend any Star Trek fan to play this game.
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