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Star Trek Legends

Turn-based squad combat in a Star Trek setting

By Saelanna Tue 06 Apr, 2021 6:26 AM - Last Updated: Tue 27 Apr, 2021 11:10 AM
I am a bit of a fan of turn-based squad combat so when a new Star Trek game based around these mechanics was released on Apple Arcade this week, I just had to give it a go. I already play the very similar titles ‘Marvel Strike Force’ and ‘Raid Shadow Legends’ so I’m familiar with how this type of game works. ‘Star Trek Legends’ is slightly different (at the moment) because if you take into account that it’s [currently] only available via Apple Arcade, a paid subscription service, it’s technically not free to play (unlike the other aforementioned titles).

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Fighting those pesky Romulans.
What is Apple Arcade?
Apple Arcade is a subscription-based gaming service that lets users play games across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV; users can pick up where they left off on a different device. The service was announced in March 2019 and launched in the September of that year, with Apple claiming that subscribers to the service would eventually have access to more than 100 new and exclusive games. With the latest update, the Arcade library has more than doubled since the service went live and it now offers more than 180 titles.

My First Impressions of ‘Star Trek Legends’
So, as I type this, I have played through the first two chapters of the story. I am the Captain of the USS Artemis (I had no choice, that was my assigned ship) and I have been sent to investigate The Nexus (yes, said same interstellar phenomenon as featured in ‘Star Trek Generations’). My crew has disappeared, but I have been joined by other personnel (Starfleet and others – including B'Elanna Torres, Sela, a lost Borg, a random Romulan and a handful of Cardassians) - who have also been trapped there. Because it is the Nexus, time has no meaning, so my ‘new’ crew consists of characters from all the incarnations of Star Trek. My current away team consists of William Riker, Worf, Michael Burnham, and Doctor McCoy; the developers have written some good interactions between the different crew members. McCoy%20Dialogue%20Resize? t=1617488706
Doctor McCoy reacts to a Klingon in Starfleet Uniform.
Burnham and McCoy’s reaction to Worf (a Klingon in Starfleet uniform comes as a shock to both) and McCoy’s discovery that Spock has an adopted human sister is quite amusing. The game is not all about the missions either; you can send your crew off in a shuttlecraft to earn XP and rewards while you are not online, this is especially useful for levelling characters you do not send on your away missions. You can form alliances with other players; although you cannot call them what you want you must pick two words from predefined lists (come join me in ‘Uhura’s Fortune’ if you end up playing this game). The graphics are very pleasing to the eye; the developers have not gone for hyper-realism, but a more cartoon-like aesthetic where you can still easily recognise the canon characters. As you move up the levels you can assign officers to different bridge stations, giving passive bonuses to your away team; they appear on the games ‘home screen’ in their assigned stations and, if you do not touch the screen for a few minutes, the camera goes on a little tour of the bridge which is a nice touch.

The game is still in its early post-release period and I have only played it for a few hours, but I do like what I’ve seen so far. I am definitely going to add it to my daily gaming fix but do I think the game is worth paying the £4.99 monthly subscription for Apple Arcade? If I'm being honest, no it isn't yet at any rate. While I have had a relatively glitch-free first couple of days playing the game I know some players have experienced horrendous game-breaking bugs. I'll report back in a couple of months to let you all know whether the game is still worth playing and if it still has my attention.


Let us know what you think in the comments.


WRITTEN BY Saelanna - mary.harvey@ufplanets.com
EDITED BY Saelanna
SCREENSHOTS PROVIDED BY SAELANNA
IMAGES SOURCED FROM TILTING POINT GAMES AND CBS STUDIOS
10 Comments
Tue 06 Apr, 2021 10:45 AM
Ow you made an article about the game. Nice one. Also tried it a few times now and liking every minute of it. Wink
Tue 06 Apr, 2021 2:31 PM
Even some non Trek people at work (muggles?) have been talking about this.
Tue 06 Apr, 2021 5:43 PM
Even some non Trek people at work (muggles?) have been talking about this.
Ow they admit they like Star Trek. Strange, most of the times non trek people don’t admit they watched an episode or movie or played a Star Trek game in my nearby surroundings Smile
Then it has to be something good.
Tue 06 Apr, 2021 6:17 PM
I love it! Can’t quite get enough of it at the moment, being behind the Apple Arcade paywall I think helps as the game itself isn’t as hardcore free to play and loot crate dependent as other free titles!
Wed 07 Apr, 2021 3:11 AM
A: Need a subscription to a service to play.
B: Apple.

I might, if i was very tempted and in a good mood, be convinced to overlook point A....

But i've been anti-apple since the Trinity (apple II, TRS80, Commodore PET) releases in 1977.

Somehow everybody seems to remember the apple II being the best and most influential of that trinity while the Apple II and TRS-80 both were using relatively primitive integer BASICs for their first six months on the market while the PET had a full-featured BASIC with floating point support, a sophisticated screen editor, and lowercase letters, the last being a feature that the two competing platforms would not have for a few years.

In fact by the time the Apple II and TRS-80 cought up with Commodore, Commodore was almost ready to release the ViC20 which was followed less than 2 years later by their legendary and world record holding C64.

The PET layed the foundation of a dynasty of game changing and industry leading computers that ended (sadly) with the Amiga.

But somehow a large portion of the world seems to insist on giving credit to Apple for things they actually didn't create or pioneered. There's the a lot of those but most irritating are perhaps the Apple 1 (initially a kitboard computer inspired by a demo of an Altair 8800 inspired computer which Wozniack attended) the ipod (an mp3 player they released in 2001 while the Diamond Rio PMP300-mp3-speler had been successfull since 1998 ) and ofcourse the ipad (a Tablet computer with touchscreen released in 2010 while there had been touchscreen tablet computers (even with MACos no less) for years before Jobs came up with his pad)

But the main reason for my anti apple conviction is that apple was, is and will be the enemy of consumer freedom. If i buy a product, i want to own it, and do with it as i see fit. If you buy an Apple product, Apple owns it, and you may do with it ONLY what Apple deems fit. If you buy anything Apple, you know there is a product available that does exactly the same and more, for less money and without most of the restrictions Apple imposes on every Apple consumer's soul.

So i hope the game will be released on any other platform than apple, otherwise i'm affraid i will not ever experience it myself.

(apologies for what i see now inadvertantly turned into an anti apple rant. I shall endevour to prevent myself from doing these in the future)
Wed 07 Apr, 2021 10:03 AM
I am a self-confessed “Apple Tart” (as my husband puts it) - I have at least one of most things Apple offers product wise (including an Apple Pencil)! I think the only thing I don’t have is Apple TV, but I can access that via an app on the PlayStation.
Wed 07 Apr, 2021 10:39 AM
I am a self-confessed “Apple Tart” (as my husband puts it) - I have at least one of most things Apple offers product wise (including an Apple Pencil)! I think the only thing I don’t have is Apple TV, but I can access that via an app on the PlayStation.
Well if your due a new phone any time soon you will have that to they giving 12 months free with new phones and tablets at the mo. and your apple addiction is complete.
Wed 07 Apr, 2021 2:26 PM
You are the same as I am in that matter. But here in Belgium we have a provider we’re you can buy apple products with your phone/internet subscription and you pay a monthly fee for 2 years and after that you can choose to exchange it with a newer model. Smile
So now I have an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch but still now MacBook.
But it is true that it is not always cheap and sometimes not fair to non apple users to exclude them from some games they publish.

I am a self-confessed “Apple Tart” (as my husband puts it) - I have at least one of most things Apple offers product wise (including an Apple Pencil)! I think the only thing I don’t have is Apple TV, but I can access that via an app on the PlayStation.
Thu 08 Apr, 2021 12:34 PM
Still playing and I was very happy to finally summon Captain Janeway to sit in the big chair on my bridge:

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Thu 08 Apr, 2021 6:49 PM
I'm going to try wiping and reinstalling my game to see if it fixes the bugs. I was excited when Janeway was added to my crew - here's hoping I get her quickly again.