Star Trek™: Armada

I am absolutely thrilled that this old favorite of mine has been so effectively preserved, so as to be able to be enjoyed for a long time to come. Not only did this work out-of-the-box for me, but the worst of the "quirks" that I'd learned to work with/around/in spite of while the game was new, have mostly been improved or resolved entirely in this re-release (remember how unstable this was in the intended OS, on intended hardware?). The compatibility tools included are well-built and effective, the experience is largely painless, and my nostalgia is thoroughly satisfied. That said, it would have been very nice to have gotten at least a handful of additional changes/tweaks, including higher resolutions, and fixes for known and documented issues (for instance: Phoenix special - and technically only - attack UI button overrides cloak UI button, making Phoenix a bomb that has to position itself in the middle of things, without a cloak to do so, as opposed to the Kling-mikaze boat which "fires" in a wide forward arc). Audio volume and volume control is just as wonky as it was before, worse in some ways, but workable. Lastly, it is impossible to neglect mentioning that mechanically, the game obviously and expectedly shows its age, though honestly as a re-release/preservation, that is essentially the goal, so, mission accomplished there. For ten bucks, this one's an easy win for anyone who would enjoy a little nostalgia, or even someone who wants to expand their experience in the ST universe, hands down. Four stars.

It's my first go at a Star Trek RTS. I must say it's been pleasant, for the most part. But honestly, ST Armada is not in the same league as Warcraft or Starcraft. Suffice to say that SC and WC belong in Premiership, and ST Armada in the Championship. Too bad Activion couldn't learn from Blizzard back in 2000. I have no qualms about sound and voice effects, Patrick Stewart (Picard), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), the Borg 'chorus' and most notably Denise Crosby (Sela) sound splendidly. Music scores provide and excellent background, especially the ones for the Romulans and the Borg. Oh and the sound of the Romulan cloacking device makes me grin before I load off a salvo of photon torpedoes from my D'deridex Warbirds. Yes, guilty - I've been a Trekkie since 1987. Now, I have a small issue with graphics, particularly the cut-scenes Worf is in. It's as if Activision's art department couldn't animate Worf's head right. His Klingon forehead is edgy and pixelated. Meanwhile Sela's and Picards'/Lucutus's animantions are done roughly OK. Ship models are OK, maps are simply gorgeous, shields, torpedo and phaser effects just like in Star Trek TNG-era. Story and mission desing are really good. It's a shame we don't get to utilise the neutral powers in the conflict too much. This is mainly possible in Borg's arc because Borg cubes make it easy to assimilate virtually any ship or building including 'neutral' powers (ie. the Breen, Ferengi, Dominion). Too bad we don't get to use the more. Also some units are underpowered like Escort class (Defiant) or Nebulas class. Klingon ships also seem to be a bit underpowered. The old D'deridex Warbird can easily take down a Negh'Var warship. I say the game needs some balancing. Game difficulty is about right. My main issue with the game is it's stability. Roughly 1/10-1/15 times I reload a save the game crashes. The same goes for minimilising the game using alt + tab. So remember to save often. Despite my Trekkie heart I can't give it 5 stars.

Been asking for this to be released on GoG for a long time & now that it has been it works perfectly! Tried to get the old CD version to work on win 10 but to no avail, no issues what so ever with the GoG version. For a 22 year old game it is brilliant. Warhammer 3 has just been released & I'm playing Star Trek Armada, that certainly says something about it's quality! Set all graphics to max and it looks fine, only 4:3 ratio supported however.

Despite having been released 22 years ago, Armada is still easily the best Star Trek RTS there is. First and foremost, you can tell that it is made by people who know and love their Star Trek. All the characters from the show are voiced by their real-life actors (including Patrick Stewart), and even some famous lines from the show or movies, such as 'Sir, it's the ENTERPRISE!' from First Contact, make an appearance. Having seen the entirety of TNG, DS9, and the TNG movies certainly helps when it comes to understanding all of the numerous references. In addition to that, and in sharp contrast to Armada II, the gameplay is (mostly) compatible with Star Trek canon. While Armada II often has you command upwards of 60 Sovereign-class vessels, Armada features smaller fleets of more durable ships. The shields act as the health bar, which too is largely in line with Star Trek canon. Like in actual Trek, the ships in Armada can take a beating, whereas an Akira-class vessel gets one-shotted by a starbase in Armada II. The only criticism one could come up with is that the gameplay isn't exactly deep or complex. 90% of the missions are beaten by simply producing a double-digit number of the most powerful ship available and sending them towards the enemy base. The missions that are an exception to this rule are easily the most fun ones. Armada is not a challenging game, and since there are only 20 missions in total, the game can be beaten in less than 15 hours. As for the version here on GOG, I'm honestly impressed. GOG's custom DirectDraw wrapper works perfectly, and aside from the rough transition between the menus and 3D engine, it plays just like it did in 2000. There are two missions suffering from a critical bug that may result in a no-win condition, but these have been around since 2000 and can be dealt with by using the level skip cheat. Overall, while not a must-buy for people not infatuated with Star Trek, Armada most definitely is one for those who are.

This game is as good as I remember, no problems running on my laptop. No adjustments needed. You can play Multiplayer over the Internet using Game Ranger, one user has instructions in the Forum for this game.