Gameplay

There have been some major changes made between SFC III and its predecessors that will surprise, yet probably delight, veterans of the series. The first and foremost change being that the ships and equipment are now based on the Star Trek: The Next Generation series rather than on the original series and movies. The resulting change in timeline means that six races from the earlier SFC have been eliminated including the ISC, Gorns, Hydrans, Lyrans, Orion Pirates and the Mirak. The holdovers include the Federation, the Klingon and Romulan Empires and now arguably the greatest threat to all the races: the Borg. In keeping with what seems to be a “less is more” theme, there are only 28 basic hulls to choose from, quite a change from the earlier 300+. This can, however, be deceiving since now every hull can be customized. Customizations range from choosing weapons for each and every mount to selecting the size of the warp and impulse engines. To add even more detail to your design, you can choose a specific cloaking device or targeting system. This customization allows players to build their ships based on their favorite tactics and or playing style. The only limits on what equipment you choose are ship mass and the amount of prestige you have.

Speaking of prestige, it has become the coin of the realm in SFC III. You earn prestige from completing missions and performing certain actions within the game. With prestige you are able to upgrade and resupply your ship, along with being able to purchase new ships. Without prestige, you and your crew are doomed to a life of mediocrity.

Another welcome gameplay change is the new streamlined interface, which means no more wading through countless panels and their sub-menus needed to issue a simple command. Three sliders now handle power distribution; one each for primary weapons, heavy weapons and shields respectively. This welcome simplicity allows you to concentrate on your fighting game instead of being buried in a morass of micromanagement.

The movement system has been also overhauled to make more sense and function more practically than in previous SFC titles. The modified warp drive controls allow you to make distance-spanning warp jumps at high speed, which is great for getting some distance to find a safe recloaking point, or to allow for high speed torpedo and mine runs. Now, however, there’s a penalty for going to warp as it takes a few seconds to activate and while you are in warp no systems are operable other than torpedoes. In other words you temporarily become a sitting duck. The other modification to the movement system is the ability to go up to ¼ impulse speed in reverse thrust. Judicious use of reverse thrust can make or break a battle as you can change a pursuing enemy into the pursued by blasting the reverse thrusters and watching him overshoot your position.

The SFC III development team has also made the crew as important to the game as your ship and equipment. In SFC III , there are now six key crew positions from Helm to Medical with each having a subset of three skills. These sub-skills are ranked from unskilled all the way to legendary and have a dramatic effect on your ship’s performance. A quality helmsman can pull your ship through those tricky high-energy turns, while an unskilled weapons officer will end up blasting away at nothing but dead space instead of the enemy frigate right in front of him. The skills system actually lends a certain RPG attachment to your crew as you watch their skills rise and try to keep them alive for the next battle

As far a single-player gameplay goes, SFC III ships with an impressive campaign whose story is better than some of the Star Trek movies that have been released. In a nutshell, the Federation and Klingon Empire have fared so well in their alliance that they decide to build a shared starbase code named Unity. This does not sit well with the Romulan Empire who decides to break up the party and with any luck, get their hands on the code. Choose a specific race to play as, and the campaign shifts accordingly. In fact there are actually two campaigns for each race other than the Borg; the story driven campaign and the conquest campaign. The Borg have only the conquest driven campaign since the Borg’s sole goal is the assimilation of other races.

The real improvement in the single player game is the AI. The AI actually fights intelligently by playing like a true Starfleet officer. AI opponents will jockey for better fighting position, target weak shields, and get out of Dodge whenever they are hopelessly outmatched.

While the single-player mode is fantastic, SFC III really shines in multiplayer, which allows you to play online through Gamespy or on Dynaverse servers. In multiplayer games, you can join up and fight in user- created rooms with modes such as Battlefest, Base Assault, Free for All, Team Assault and one-on-one. If you really want to get the true flavor of what SFC III is all about I suggest that you head for one of the Dynaverse servers and join in a campaign.

On most of the Dynaverse servers you will start out with a small ship, generally a frigate, and are given only a modest amount of prestige. From there, you will be joining battle with and against other players as you fight for galactic conquest and for the honor for your chosen empire. You will actually feel like you’re part of an ongoing epic galactic war as your actions directly effect your empire’s economy and the economy of your opponents.

There are plenty of Dynaverse servers including two official Activision ones, and more sprouting up every day with their own custom modifications (such as more or less prestige or toning down Borg cubes). I highly suggest trying a variety of servers to find one that suits your favored style of gameplay. There’s generally something for everyone in the Dynaverse.

Graphics

In SFC III, The ship models are a definite upgrade over their predecessors with higher resolution and more detailed textures. Frequently during gameplay you will find yourself admiring how well ships look, unless of course you happen to be looking at a Borg cube, which won’t allow you much time to admire it. Whenever a ship starts to take a pounding you’ll be treated to some intense weapon effect graphics ranging from trailing some purple gas to seeing battle scars appear on your target’s hull. When a ship gets destroyed you’ll be treated to a glorious explosion, with a ball of destruction followed by the ship actually breaking into pieces followed by a hellacious shockwave. It’s a great joy to watch these explosions, unless of course it’s your ship that’s doing the exploding. The environmental graphics are also top notch with planets, asteroids, stars, nebulae and black holes all being represented with full graphical glory. In fact, fighting in nebulae is a personal favorite as a sort of fog is created by the particle effect of the nebula’s gaseous cloud. If you remember the climactic battle scene in the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, you get the idea of what fighting in nebulae is all about.

Sound

In SFC III , the sound effects are top notch and fit the action to a “t”. Sometimes it seems as if you could close your eyes and judges the effects of your last torpedo volley by sound alone. All the bases are covered with the game’s sounds, down to the sound of a warp drive engaging or a transporter beaming troops over to the bridge of the enemy’s ship.

During the Federation campaign, Patrick Stewart does the voice acting, which is a really nice touch that helps foster the feeling of being immersed into the Star Trek universe. The voice acting for other characters in the game, including your crew and the crew of enemy vessels is also excellent. The crews actually give verbal queues as to how well your ship is doing, and even lend a hand by offering tips during the heat of battle.

Overall

Down in the basement with other mementoes of my youth such as Battlemech, and D & D lies an old copy of Starfleet Battles, which was the basis of the rules for Starfleet Command I and II. I used to dream of the day when a video version of Starfleet Battles would arrive that would do justice to the tabletop game. Now, with SFC III being such an outstanding game in all respects I have probably bid a permanent and oh so sad farewell to Starfleet Battles as I now have a new Star Trek addiction to feed.