S&S step off the scene...
Name a trek game that had a massive build up but when released was the
biggest flop in the year 2000, they will say Dominion Wars.
This is another game that just goes to show that some pretty models and nice
textures just don't make a good game. When up close to any of the ship models in
the game, which turned out to be much more often than anyone probably would have
liked, I was genuinely impressed. The ships look like lower res versions of the
show's own space-bound craft. Effects in the game are decent if not brilliant.
Phasers seem a little slow to find their target at times, although that seemed
to depend on the craft that was shooting them so maybe it was a little piece of
Star Trek science that I don't know. Some of the environments in the game were
also fairly decent, although for the most part, it's space you know. It's kind
of hard to get that wrong.
Sound also was fairly decent. The effects used in the game will be pretty
familiar to anyone that's watched any of the shows. Phasers firing, torpedoes
launching, shields being hit, transporters being used, all of that sounds like
the shows. Music in the game is fairly decent although it wasn't striking enough
for me to really sit back and think, "wow, this sounds good!" Voice-overs in the
mission briefings and the battles were fairly lifeless however. The briefings
didn't get me excited to be going into battle to either crush or defend the
Alpha Quadrant. The ships themselves never really give any indication whether
they're being attacked or the like. No "help I'm getting my butt kicked by a big
bug looking ship!" No "hey look, I found a big bug looking ship and there are
more coming this way, let's get 'em guys!" Nothing to that effect at all. The
most you get to tell you how things are going are a couple of lifeless computer
notices telling you that something appeared on your sensors somewhere (where?
who knows? I sure didn't). They didn't bother putting any personality into any
of the captains to care about them dying or advancing.
So seeing as there was no personality in the game, you would like to figure
that there would be a great interface and some exciting game play to balance all
of that out. Unfortunately, you would be figuring wrong. Even after all of the
patches to fix what was a horribly buggy mess at release, the game still has a
bunch of problems -- weird crashes, graphical glitches, a sticky interface and a
scrolling feature that barely works just to name a few. But even without the
bugs, the clunky interface made the very frustrating at times, especially since
there was no way to pause the game and give orders.
For a tactical strategy game, there's a sad amount of tactics or strategy to
really be employed here. You see, space in the Star Trek universe is apparently
on a 2D plane. We've heard the argument before that the show was like that, but
I remember very distinctly that during the massive battles during the Dominion
Wars, ships were definitely navigating on the Z-axis. So basically what you're
reserved to in battles are a couple of different moves such as circling the
enemy, jousting with the enemy, or following the enemy. Those kinds of things
sound like they might be useful, but if the ships actually manage to carry out
your orders, they're less likely to remember to fire weapons (the age old
problem of walking and chewing gun and firing your forward phaser banks) at the
same time). So really it comes down to overpowering your enemies either by
numbers or by equipping your ships with special weapons and shield enhancements.
There are small strategic decisions you can make like which target to attack
first, but with the conspicuous absence of formations or group attack patterns
that you always hear about during battles, things get boring.
The interface is a huge problem as well. There are just too many keyboard
shortcuts for things that you just don't care about. Who the hell cares if
picture in picture is on or off at the click of a button. Why not the different
attack modes? Why not the system targeting buttons? These would have been
useful. But a camera that didn't change angles every time the ship you're
following moves directions, or changes zoom level every time you focus the
screen on a different ship would have been much more useful. A tactical map to
give orders out to various ships would have been welcome as well. As it is, you
can only really keep track of what's going on in one area at a time with any
kind of efficiency. Having an overview map to switch to could have solved these
problems by allowing you a bigger overview map in which you could see what's
going on all over the map in some detail. Hell, Homeworld did that, and that was
in full 3D.
Basically Dominion Wars COULD have been a great game, but as S&S were on the
verge of losing there trek license anyway it seemed to the gamer that they
rushed the game to et it out of the way...
Write up by V1ctor1st
13/11/2002
Cheats
When you select an enemy ship you can slowly damage that ship by
pressing [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Del].
