Star Trek: Fleet Command is an interesting experiment; Star Trek games in general usually do extremely well, because the established mythos is intricate, interesting and engaging to the extreme.
With a famous cast of characters, an established system of alliances and enemies and a clear attention to scientific detail and combat intricacies, any game set in the Star Trek universe is bound to do well.
Right?
Star Trek: Fleet Command seems to be a small exception to this rule, as it seems to exist as nothing more than a time sink.[sc name=”quote” text=”Star Trek: Fleet Command seems to be a small exception to this rule, as it seems to exist as nothing more than a time sink.”]
The idea of time sink strategy games have been around for years, with the player controlling their base and managing resources, building buildings to create and store those resources and occasionally attacking other players and AI to keep climbing, all for the eventual goal of being the strongest alliance.
This is all fairly standard but it is the story and the background gameplay that keeps the player interested. However, when this is lacking, the game will tend to fall completely flat.
This is the case with Star Trek: Fleet Command, as the game boils down to little more than endless clicking with no satisfaction. You click the screen to fight a battle with an enemy ship, you kind of circle each other for a few seconds, then you win and go back home.
This same process repeats itself again and again, from combat to building and resource gathering, forcing you to not really make any kind of gameplay decisions, instead just watching and waiting for the next thing to click to advance through the game ever so slightly.
The boring combat is by far the worst, leaving the player with essentially very little to do other than just… watch nothing happening.
The game makes a good effort to try and tie the players in with the existing Star Trek-mythos war, with the Romulans, Cardassians and Federation all engaging in open conflict, but after the introduction, the real meat of the story just falls apart.
There are very little interesting things to do, with even less actually engaging story content to enjoy, leaving Star Trek: Fleet Command a hollow, empty game with no actual remnants of enjoyment.[sc name=”quote” text=”There are very little interesting things to do, with even less actually engaging story content to enjoy, leaving Star Trek: Fleet Command a hollow, empty game with no actual remnants of enjoyment.”]
Star Trek: Fleet Command has the potential to be many things – an engaging Star Trek strategy game, or in the very least an engaging time waste that many mobiles are. Evidently, Star Trek: Fleet Command aspires to be in the latter category with so little effort taken to combine the genre with the Star Trek theme, but if it tried just a little bit harder, it easily, easily, could have been so much better.
If you love Star Trek, or even if you really love time sink mobile games, Star Trek: Fleet Command isn’t really one to consider.
[review pros=”The graphics can be flashy and Star Trek-y on occasion.” cons=”The Star Trek theme is incredibly poorly integrated into the game genre. The gameplay is boring, uninteresting and without engagement.” score=3]
[appbox appstore id1427744264]
[appbox googleplay com.scopely.startrek]
