Star Trek: Conquest for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

Star Trek Conquest screams budget from top to bottom. Looking at the credits, there really wasn't a lot of manpower behind this title and it shows.

There is strategy/sim here, and its slightly deeper than say Star Wars Battlefront (conquest mode) but if you are looking for Starcraft or even Advance wars, you will be left wanting.

In fact everyone playing this game will be left wanting. A strat game w/ the option for Trek branded arcade battles sounds great on paper. But when you only have 5 programmers to make it happen, and a handful of artists. You end up w/ a skeleton of a game.

However if one approaches this game with the mindset that it is a $15(new)game, compared to offerings on PSN/XBL it holds up ok.

The 'arcade' combat is actually straight out of encounters only dumbed down to complete 2D now, no bathtub sinking and rising in pseudo 3D anymore. This is flat plane chase and shoot.

There are some nice welcome features tho, the ability to control a 'fleet' in real time, switch between ships, auto sim battles etc... Nice touches.

The problem is in the core balance w/re: to Star Trek lore. The defiant class Federation ships for example are simple 'scout' ships w/ weak weapons, shields etc... Any true Trek fans know this is not the case, the Defiant was a tank built for war that is supposed to have the strongest hull, weapons everything is designed for war.

In fact the entire premise/goal of the game is to "conquer the galaxy" not exactly in line w/ the prime directive. Entering alien space without reason w/ a fleet of Voyager looking ships, wiping them out w/o provocation is not the hallmark of Trek federation morality.

But there it is. Build stations, conquer, and engage everyone else in simplistic 2 stick shooting.

It would have been 100x better as an online, $10, multiplayer XBL/PSN game, but that can be said for a lot of games these days.