Systems: Windows 9x, Windows 2000 Windows XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10. You know times are getting desperate when distinctly average games that have enjoyed a modicum of success Stan getting sequels simply on the strength of their licences. The press release that accompanies Armada II states that the original game was 'the best-selling Star.

EeeevilWhen it comes to space operas like Star Trek or Babylon 5 you can have all the square-jawed heroes, but what you really need to give a show that extra edge is some really nasty baddies. Bablyon 5 pulled this off well, featuring the evil Shadows, with their jet black ships and sneaky plots. And the entertainingly off-kilter Lexx 's central antagonist was a strange shadowy lifeform who initially ruled a rather macabre universe dominating empire (which Star Wars' Imperial Empire had nothing on) and later became a sort of half machine creature who succeeded in destroying the entire universe piece by piece.But the creators of Star Trek: The Next Generation must claim the prize for creating the best evil baddies ever - the Borg. The Borg are half human, half mechanical and uglier than the Daleks ever were. Except that is, for Voyager's Seven of Nine who has been shorn of most of her robotic appendages and appears to be the only member of the Voyager crew with a with access to unlimited supplies of lycra and special Borg 'implants' which probably contravene every Starfleet clothing regulation.

Still, she's more a blip than an emerging trend amongst the Borg, and the rest of the Borg remain thoroughly nasty, their nastiness rating boosted by the fact that they spend most of their free time mercilessly assimilating all species they come across, turning them into Borg drones and stripping them of their individuality.And if that wasn't worrying enough, they're virtually unstoppable. They're so nasty, in fact, that I suspect at least half of all the people who bought Star Trek: Armada bought it just for the chance to play as the Borg. After all, everyone knows that the when it comes to lethal weaponry and bottom-kicking ships, bad is best. Powered downUnfortunately, those looking forward to assimilating the universe in one fell swoop may be a little disappointed upon picking up Star Trek: Armada, for a couple of reasons. The first of the reasons is that the Borg campaigns, like those of the other races, slot neatly into the storyline.

This is an interesting approach in itself but does have the downside that you can't do anything that would alter the storyline. You can't assimilate the Enterprise for example, or assimilate the Earth and rule the galaxy (on a permanent basis, at least).

Having the bad guys win is apparently not on the cards - the Federation always manage to save the day. Secondly, as David Finn points out in his pretty comprehensive review, the Borg in Armada are rather weak compared to their counterparts in the Star Trek: First Contact movie and the ST:NG.In the series, the Borg cube dwarfed the Enterprise and the only way the Federation could defeat the Borg was by running around like headless chickens for 40 minutes and then coming up with some techo-gibberish to miraculously disable and or destroy them.

In Star Trek: Armada however, each cube is about the same size as the Enterprise and about as strong. The series and movie Borg ships also had the ability to remodulate their shields thereby negating any phaser damage they may have received - this too has been taken out of the game, despite the fact that the Borg ships, when ordered to move, often say 'remodulating shields'. 'Resistance is futile?' - resistance is too flipping easy, more like.

Oh, how cruel it is to have your plans for galactic domination crushed. KidnappedOn the plus side, you do still get a variety of Borg weaponry that you can use against your foes, such as the combined holding beam and assimilator attached to the Borg Cube that can grab and assimilate the crew of any ship, even if their shields are up. Other races can take over ships too, but they have to wait till their opponents' shields are low - but it's still worth doing as there's something ego-boosting, especially in multiplayer mode, about nicking your enemy's ships and then using them to take out their own. It's one of the rather nice touches that makes Star Trek Armada such a promising game when you first pick it up.Other nice (or 'neat' if you're an American) touches include the multiplayer game which features a skirmish mode so you can take on AI opponents in lieu of kicking arse on-line and getting some practice in. Plus, should you go about setting up your own multiplayer game you can customise pretty much everything in the game - including whether or not the Ferengi put in an appearance. When this race is in the game they'll fly around the game area and nick any crewless derelicts, hauling them away before you can re-crew and rescue them.At least in theory that's the way it's supposed to happen - in truth, I witnessed a rather monumental Ferengi bug not once but twice while playing Star Trek: Armada.

Not only did a Ferengi ship manage to capture one of my ships that was fully crewed with Borg, having recently been assimilated, but on traversing an asteroid belt the Ferengi ship cleared the belt okay but my ship got stuck behind an asteroid, so the Ferengi's blue tractor beam stretched, and stretched, and stretched. Until, no - my ship didn't escape, the ship was mysteriously pulled through a solid asteroid and taken off the map. Buggy of BorgAnd the above bug wasn't the only one I ran into either - even with the Beta Patch installed I ran into a number of others, some minor, some major.

The worst one was on the fourth Federation mission - after destroying all the Borg vessels and bases I found myself unable to complete the mission as there was one green dot on the map. This dot turned out to be nothing at all - not a ship, not a Borg base, just a strange dot that could not be destroyed, so I ended up skipping the mission as have dozens and even hundreds of people if the strategic newsgroups are anything to go. Shipping a product with this many bugs just isn't on and it's especially annoying as Star Trek: Armada had the potential to be a real corker.In strategic terms too, Armada is a little under par - it could have done with a little more unit tweaking and unit variety. Granted, the differing special abilities of the ships do add some variety to the game but they don't disguise the fact that each side has pretty much the same basic types of ships and units. In Total Annihilation - a comparison that's especially valid since Armada is just a 2D strategy game in space - no single unit could kick the electronic cack out of every other one. You could blitz Big Bertha guns with aircraft, manufacture anti-aircraft units that could take out flying vehicles and use smaller craft to take out the giant stomping robots and tanks.But in Star Trek: Armada - even when you have the 'director's cut' mode turned on which means ships turn and zoom around in combat - you need only to manufacture six or so of the big units such as the large Enterprise starships or the Borg Cubes to be able to take out pretty much everything in your path. Even a swarm of fighters doesn't stand much chance against a heavily armed starship - although you'd think the fighters would move too fast for the bigger ships to be able to get a lock on them.

Still, no-one said Sci-fi had to be realistic. Or indeed that Star Trek: Armada had to be an entertaining and bugless game, more's the shame.The real telling point is that if it wasn't for the Star Trek licence, Armada probably wouldn't have even made it to market.

As it stands, Star Trek: Armada does, as David Finn states, feel like a rushed product. In fact, it feels like the production team were working on it happily, making good progress, when someone in marketing decided they needed it released next month, and they shipped it way ahead of time.Star Trek: Armada could have been a good game, but as it stands it's just a case of big name, shame about the game.Review By GamesDomain External links. BebeOso 2019-10-13 5 pointsOk. So many thanks to LECK for getting this working, for me.It's still a buggy mess and crashes 7/10 in the menus, but once in, playing the game is no problem.The big issue that I seem to have, is that once you've finished the fourth chapter for each faction, that's it.

That's as far as the game will allow me to go.It happened for the Federation, so I thought 'Fine, I'll move on'. Did it for all the others. Absolutely no idea why.Tried using a code to move on, but all it seems to do is take me back to the main menu. Then when I try to open up a factions missions, game crashes out.Very bizarre.

Leck 2019-02-09 4 pointsi figure i would answer the question everyone seems to have because i was trying to get this to work for 10 years and finally did. I cannot take most of the credit, even though i have some additional comments beyond just giving links. These are instructions how to get armada1 to work on windows 10. On windows 7 you can simply install patch 1.2 and it should work. I believe windows vista only needs patch 1.1, and on windows xp and 98 this game should run natively without modification.first thing is you need the iso or cd of the game (you need the game).

Both should work the same way. If you have an iso, you need software to simulate a physical cd (or you can burn a physical cd is another option). The best free software for different purposes changes from year to year so i suggest 'virtual clonedrive' in 2019 as the best free software to mount iso files. Any mounting software will do.open the cd in your file explorer (double click on the cd drive) and run the 'setup.exe'. After armada is finished installing you can install a mappack into your addons folder. Here is a link to get patches and maps if you don't want to bother with the mappack, skip this step. You might be able to add maps later, i'm not sure.

Install patch 1.2. Then install patch 1.3.

Then get the 'armada-fix' file from and follow the instructions on this page (if this link is broken simply copy the 3 files in the armada-fix into your main armada directory. If you don't have access to 'armada-fix' i am saving these files for decades, so you can contact me directly and i can send them to you)you should be able to play single player at this point. I was unable to find a way to get out of 640x480 resolution or mute sound, but the game is still perfectly playable in this way on windows 10. I had to alt+tab out and back in to see anything but a black screen every time i started the game, but that's a small price to pay to play a game i've been trying to get to work for over 10 years.i have a method i am going to try to get multiplayer to work i have not tried yet. It should work.

It involves using the 'stvssw' mod and using tunneling software to connect 2 computers. Again i'm not going to write this here because this method is more complicated than just getting the game to work, and i haven't even tested it yet.-my websitewww.Lecksite.com. Cao 2018-11-03 0 pointI used to play this game NON-stop, I got so many mods and played online as often as I could.

It's too bad it's tricky to get working, I was kind of hoping somebody would have modified it so that it works on WIndows 10 by now. Gmod battle royale server. There are ways to get it to work, sure, but it's a pain in the arse.unless I'm missing something?Oh and I should say I still have my favorite old mod which I don't mind sharing (if they're not online anymore): AresV3, and some maps to go with it: 8fallen, 6war, 3contact.

As an RTS experience set in outer space, Star Trek: Armada II is much like the original game in functionality. You often control the Enterprise, and as far as gameplay and enjoyment, the sequel exceeds the original since it's more difficult. Unfortunately, though, the creators tossed a few good features from the original that would have made a big difference.

The fully animated video sequence that followed and preceded each level in the original is missing and has been replaced with the captain's voice narrating the objectives of the mission and plot with camera shots of the ships moving about. While not inherently bad, and typical of many other games in the genre, it's more exciting to watch the story unfold through action sequences. Also, Armada II doesn't have the full cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation or focus on Captain Picard, whose voice was used throughout. But, you still have a plethora of options available for unit creation, and the Instant Action mode has limitless possibilities.

You can still change perspectives, allowing you to fully enjoy the action, and Armada II has an action window that depicts battles on the right hand corner of the screen. Clicking on it takes you directly to the scene, where you can quickly get into the action, and you can zoom in or out using the mouse scroll wheel. In single player mode, units you create are often limited to the circumstances of each mission, but as you progress, more technology and research becomes available.

An interesting and unique aspect concerns researching both defensive and offensive tools for your armada, such as researching a shield generator for the sovereign-class ships that can be used in battle. You eventually acquire three separate research stations: a Federation research facility, science station, and Vulcan research institute, with the latter used for researching and developing more powerful armor, weaponry, engines and life support for all of your ships. In Armada II, you don't have a need to research and develop new ships; they just appear as you progress.

The single player game is nicely designed with three campaigns putting you in the control seat of three different races: the Federation, Klingons, and the Borg. Federation missions come first, and you can't move on to others until they're completed in sequence. The Federation missions start easy and don't become difficult until the last Borg confrontations, where you must think and act fast to construct your base and build ships to defend yourself from their constant attacks. After completion of all ten Federation missions, the Klingon missions open up. The storyline moves in a very interesting way because each race is involved in the same conflict. When you begin the Klingon missions, you continue from where the Federation missions ended, but from the Alpha Quadrant.

Each race has the same number of units that operate in similar fashion, but weaponry is different and gives certain races advantages in some situations. Overall, though, the races are very equal in power with units that perform the same functions, but the differences are enough to offer each race a totally different sound and look. Playing the various races is enjoyable, since you feel as if you're controlling something alien.

While single-player mode makes for a really good game, Armada II shines in multiplayer and instant action modes. The former lets you play as any race against up to eight people using a LAN or Internet connection, while instant action lets you choose from any race, map or battle condition against an AI opponent. Both modes are assets, providing limitless gameplay with full capabilities and technologies of all races available. Naturally, though, the multiplayer mode offers even more strategic possibilities due to the unpredictability of other human players.

Graphics: The graphics are nicely done and smooth zoom features offer close views of your ships during the action. Very little slowdown occurs when multiple ships are on the screen.

Sound: The sound consists of the classical Star Trek soundtrack with the voice of Captain Picard, and despite the lack of full motion video sequences of the crew, the voicing is a plus. Sounds change with the different races and make each one unique, including the sound of your cursor highlighting an option.

Enjoyment: The game offers two levels of fun. First, the single-player game provides a story and overall goal. Second, Instant Action and multiplayer modes deal with eliminating the other player(s). Regardless, the first mode would benefit from more solid storyline and full-motion video sequences.

Replay Value: Multiplayer adds a solid replay factor to Armada II, and the tough AI component in Instant Action mode offers plenty of chances to replay missions.

Star Trek: Armada II is the sequel to the best-selling Star Trek RTS, Star Trek Armada. An innovative game, Star Trek Armada II adds a new level of strategy and realism to the original by allowing players to command from a 3D tactical view. Set in The Next Generation universe, the game's story unfolds through three single-player campaigns played as the Federation, Klingons and Borg. Additionally, the Cardassians, Romulans and Species 8472 will join the fray throughout the single-player campaigns.

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