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Star Trek Armada II

by Jim "Twitch" Tittle

Article Type: Review
Article Date: February 01, 2002

Product Info

Game Title: Star Trek Armada II
Category: RTS Space Combat Simulation
Publisher: ActiVision
Release Date: Released
Min. Spec: TBA
Files & Links: Click Here
***



There was a time when this reviewer looked down upon anything besides combat flight sims. But guess what? In the past decade plus that I’ve been interested in PC flight sims, there have only been a handful of good ones.

Some Federation goodies

A funny thing happened when I got a hold of ActiVision’s first RTS (Real Time Strategy) Star Trek Armada. I actually liked it. I had fun with a game instead of a flight sim for a change. Actually I was burned out on the hardcore fans that couldn’t be pleased by anything any company developed. I was weary of historical careers and campaigns. I was ripe for Armada. It’s like “Star Trek” is real history, it’s been around so long anyway.

What has amazed me more than anything is the legion of loyal fans and sites. Why? Activision’s developers made the game to be easily mod-able by anyone. So? That means files are mostly written in plain English and changing things is fun, easy and is what makes any game or sim enjoy a long life. Instead of quick and dirty, Activision chose to make an open file system that others should emulate.



Install

Installation of the program took eight minutes to lay down its one gigabyte plus of information as files decompress onto the hard drive. But once done and entered the look is totally new. After the well-done graphics in the historical background is done you get new screens to guide you into the game. They are more Next Generation style. And the sound effect of just the mouse clicking on things is an immersion for sure. There’s a deep, heavy ambience to them like slamming the door of a quality automobile. They are satisfying sounds.

But stepping into Armada II is akin to a “Star Trek” TV episode involving Captain Kirk traveling in time to the future. All the familiar basics are there but the new look and added unknowns throw you off balance. If you never played the original Armada you might have an advantage to some extent by not unlearning and re-learning.

All the basic setup preferences are there as before. You have three resolutions. Gone is 640 X 480. 800 X 600 is the minimum with 16- or 32-bit mode. 1024 X 768 and 1280 X 960 are also present in 16- and 32-bit color mode too. I seemed to like the higher setting for seeing more things on a smaller scale at double the 640 X 480. You can zoom in/out so the resolution is up to your preference. You can still adjust game speed, mouse sensitivity and all the sound settings too.

Acceptable system requirements state a PII 300 MHz is usable. I ran original Armada on a 266 MHz with few problems and 96 MB RAM. 64 MB RAM is listed as minimum but 128MB is strongly recommended. A quad-speed CD ROM drive will allegedly work. The CD comes with Direct X 8.0a to save you a download if you have an earlier version. Instructions remind you to have the latest 32-bit drivers for your devices. Armada II will run on Windows 95/98/ME/2000. I ran original Armada on 95, 98 and ME. If you have XP it is best you go to the ActiVision site to see if it will. I would wager you’ll be able to run it.

Some objects in mapeditor

Included on the CD is the familiar map editor that functions as the previous one did. Though it stated that it is technically an unsupported feature, it would have been easier if you could install it during the game setup. It’s not hard to do if you’ve done it before but there is some fiddling about to copy four files from the CD to the game folder and changing text in the properties field after you make a copy of the Armada II execute icon. You need to re-name it as the mapmaker icon. But the creation of different maps keeps the game new for a long, long time.

Many objects more are animated

There is a Storm 3D tool download available for modifying existing object shapes. Again, it’s an unsupported ActiVision tool, which means don’t query the tech assistance; you’re on your own. It’s more of a seasoned-user item anyway. You can’t create new shapes but you can extensively modify the existing ones. It is complicated and takes time to learn but is a very good free addition. Get some familiarity with the game before messing with it. I found it only at the great fan site Stamods but not at the official site.

Technically the file structure layout should work better without the catch-all “Addon” folder to dump custom maps, added ship files and new sound files into as was the case before. I personally believe this was a problem area.



Sounds

Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard is back lending his distinctive voice to the lead in animations. In fact, as previously, the original actors J.G. Hertzler and Alice Krige do the Klingon Martok and Borg Queen vocals. There are more and longer voice messages to hear when events occur too. My one complaint is the basic Borg. Uh, I hate their vocals. They sound “blah.” Their voices do not echo and resonate enough. They sound like two guys in a closet on Valium. The excellent part is that modifications are very easy and you can actually import .WAVs from third party and the old Armada into Armada II if you like.

The new Cardassian voices are just as smart-alecky as the Romulan’s with their still superior tone inflections. Good touch. Species 8472 do not talk but have a repertoire of sounds.

Background music is totally new for each race though short, repeating bits. Again, you can easily change and add more music from original Armada or any .WAV file. Literally, you can have Stone Temple Pilots, Jimi Hendrix or Frank Sinatra if it is in .WAV and not too long. I cobbled up six minutes worth of the old Armada stuff I like and get a ten second hesitation after a mission is loaded so beware. It seems to like about four minutes max.

Some effect sounds are re-done and healthier in resonance and some are the same. There are sixty more of them with the new races involved. Overall the sound projection is better. I noted this when I imported a couple of old .WAV files from the old game and player them. Whatever they did, Armada II has more audio power in that area.



Sights

The “look” of the game is the same but different in that ALL of the objects have been redone and refined graphically. There are many all-new objects due to the two new races but even the existing races have new things. But being a Borg fan I do not like the stations much at all. On the other hand the ships mostly look better, especially the cubes.

Ships now go to warp when you direct them to a location on the map just like the TV series animations where they stretch during warp travel and they really move fast.

In the visual effects department there is a bit more damage modeling to stations, which vent flammable gases in a derelict condition instead of blowing to pieces. The ships break up better and the fragments dissipate better, save for the Borg cube. Instead of splintering up into tiny pieces the walls of the cube fly apart showing up like a load of lost plywood soaring over the freeway from a truck ahead. There are more animated objects overall that do look great.

Ugly- maybe modders can change it

Something I didn’t see in the demo at E3 was the main thing I do not like. Each ship or station emphasizes its existence as an object with an ugly oval line that looks like a magic marker outline in the particular team color. It is overdone. Thickness varies relative to object size it surrounds though, so smaller ships aren’t overwhelmed by it.

The game arena has more of a 3-D atmosphere. You are able to switch to a tactical mode that increases the depth feel at any time during the game. I have yet to become accustomed to the sight of tiny objects in the 3-D plane, which are farther away. It takes some fooling around to get the resolution and zoom in/out distance that is comfortable. You can make ships travel away from you getting smaller and bring them back but you should set them at the game beginning the way you like.



Game Play

There are tutorials for beginners to learn how to direct ships, change views and simply get comfortable with the tasks of whole thing. And since the level of play and handicapping is thorough, you can start out slow and easy.

So-called scoring has been vastly improved. At the end of the game you have points based on military, economic and scientific development. And each category breaks down further still to minor details like what ship destroyed another, in what battle and which station or ship was built and when. It’s intricate and nearly infinite info—much more than can be described here. If this level of debrief existed in traditional, history-based games and simulations we would all be much happier.

The subject of need of information brings us to the manual. Yes, there’s a real, 100-page manual like before. It’s thorough and not ambiguous as are many brief, tree-saving booklets found in other software titles that make you blunder through things due to terse or non-existent explanation of how to do things.

There are multiple types of play. You can progress through ten campaign missions each for the Federation, Klingon Empire and the Borg in that order each progressively harder. Instant Action allows you to setup and play as any of the three races above or the Romulans, Cardassians or Species 8472. That’s two new playable ones with the Cardassians and Species 8472.

The Cardassian line-up is new

Setups for these matches is more detailed than before with many more start settings to adjust the resources, difficulty, personnel and A.I. to begin with. You can handicap the enemy or, once you’re really good, give them an advantage. You can play by yourself against up to seven other A.I. enemies or in combinations of teams with the A.I. on your side—you and any number of A.I. allies or enemies. If you are the Federation you may want the Klingons as allies as you take on any mixture of bad guys. You can set up to have two or three of the same race as allies against any mixture of enemy races you desire. The possibilities are endless.

More control-ability with new buttons

You can assist your A.I. allies by directly transferring resources to them too as you can in online multiplayer mode. Since there are 2 to 8-player maps you must choose accordingly. Best of all, you can now save instant action games and the campaign ones when you have to eat dinner instead of just pausing it.

The ships navigate better in Armada II going over and under other ships and stations to move to the point the player chooses. There is no more getting stuck and unable to pass around some object save for asteroids, which you still cannot go over.

The real story is the vastly improved A.I. You have several new settings to give ships not under your direct control more autonomous action. They can defend themselves much better and will pursue attackers. Before they just kind of sat there until something came in range and shot back at it. They maneuver around a lot more and use special weapons if you tell them to automatically. I will not say that the enemy A.I. is smarter or tougher but it is adjustable and certainly, the player's ships’ A.I. is vastly better.

Beyond the collection of dilithium you must now mine and collect metals and latinum from the new planets and nebulas containing them. Some ships need metal resources to build them along with a cost in dilithium.

The Borg or Species 8472 do not trade in these three units nor have use for latinum, but all other races do and there are new trading stations and cargo ships to accomplish this. If you need more metal to build a fleet you can trade dilithium and/or latinum to obtain it faster than mining from your ships or new, orbital platforms.

There are more levels of technology increases available through the new stations that allow upgrades of all the ships’ systems. Much better is the realistic assimilation of technology of other races by the Borg not present in A 1. The need to build add-on super cubes is done away with since eight cubes can fuse together and become one huge, near unstoppable ship!

Fusion cube takes on Species 8472

The great part is that mods are already being done and things you don’t like can be easily changed either by yourself or the myriad, dedicated Armada modders. This is why it is a superb game.

Multiplayer is available through GameSpy if you get an account and it is possible to host and join games selecting the multiplayer screen in the game. You’ll get a list of games you can join. I didn’t have any success at multiplayer and only got hooked up once for a while with a bit of lag involved. I’ve heard a wide variety of pros and cons from other gamers who have played online so it’s up to you if online play is a primary goal for you.

Part of a TOTAL debrief

A Final Shot

I’ve come to ritualize game installation and use thusly: I delete all temporary Internet files and histories. Plus I have a utility that cleans the registry and fine-tunes the optimization process even more by purging un-necessary files. I have no TSRs running. I never let “cutesy” programs and utilities put icons and pop-ups in the taskbar. I next run Scandisk and Defrag. Only then do I install. I always run a sim or game from a clean boot then close everything and then go to the program. This way I have 94 percent system resources at my disposal for my application.

Original Armada suffered from crashes at times. But some people couldn’t even get the standard game to run much less one with many add-on mods. I believe that was a big part of the problem—Two hundred extra files to read if you had lots of mods. I’m focused on keeping that to a bare minimum with Armada II. There are many folks who just have a machine junked up with tons of stuff that debilitate the system and really don’t understand the basics for efficient operation. Probably 80 percent of crashes were user-caused. If you clean up your system everything will function better.

Every game’s fan site forum for most any title these days is rife with install problems and error anomalies. From my experience in the CD replication industry I have a hunch that some problems can be attributed to the CDs themselves. I personally have had no problems with Armada II so far.



So…?

Armada II is still good fun. It’s more complicated to play, which is a nice challenge. It looks good and sounds good. Modifications are easy. There is a huge fan base for online play and the making of additions if you feel you want them. There is just more to do to keep you occupied for longer periods. Try it. You may like it.




PS: The version 1.1 patch was released after reviewing. It lists a number of items adjusted that I really didn't find major or didn't even notice. Get it at http://www.stamods.de/ or the ActiVision site.

Review System Specs:
  • ASUS A7V133 200/266MhZ FSB mobo
  • 256MB PC-133 RAM
  • Athlon T-Bird 1.3GhZ CPU
  • SoundBlaster PCI 128 w/Yamaha YST-M7 speakers
  • nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB
  • Windows ME
  • Direct X 8.1
  • 17” Envision monitor .27 dp
  • Samsung 52X CD ROM drive


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