| 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. |
