It has been a while since I’ve played a Star Trek game. I have fond memories of Bridge Commander and Elite Force, but the license hasn’t been used much in the past few years. It’s unfortunate that my gaming return to the franchise is Star Trek: Conquest, a middling release that manages to make the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine universes both simple and boring.

Keeping things simple isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, there is a massive amount of lore within each universe, much less two. As the Federation, Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Breen, or Dominion, you will set out in a time of broken alliances and all-out warfare to forge an empire. The various characters, starbases, planets, and ships that each race contains can make for a rich experience for a fan of the series, but it can be absolutely daunting for those wanting to just dabble in a little bit of galactic conquest. With that in mind, the characters are limited to experience-based admirals – bit players from the show that are recognizable only by their screen-captured avatars – with each side able to field only three fleets. Each fleet consists of only one of three ship types, a scout, cruiser, and dreadnaught. The stats of each are plainly listed and easy to understand, so those wanting a fleet of dreadnaughts focused on defense commanded by a defense-minded admirable can set it up within a few minutes without any problems.

Even the universe is laid out plain as day. Planets are connected view traversable lines, and each planet can have a small or large starbase built above it, as well as one of a number of other structures – mines for income, science facilities for faster research, and turrets for defense. The research items – mining and research efficiencies, admiral costs, ship speed, handling and turn rate – have three levels to each, though many seem to merely be there than add anything substantial. The starbases allow for the building of ships and the auto repairing of ships, as well as a farther line of site on the main map. Each player gets their turn, either moving their fleets from one planet to another or setting it up to defend. Unlike most turn-based games, there aren’t many non-playable factions that guard resources, acting as both checks on progression and easy experience, with the Ferengi being the only nomadic bunch that need to be dealt with.

When it comes time to fight, as it inevitably will, the choice is given to either go into an arcade mode or a sim mode. Arcade mode utilizes the nunchuk to move your ship – the rest cannot be controlled – and the remote to fire. This twitch-style isn’t bad for a while, and seems fairly clever. The sim mode is simply the computer battling it out with your ships in static formation, with you being able to command your fleet to focus on offense or defense. For those matters when fighting is just a formality, there is an instant option so that the whole rigmarole of combat is done away with in favor of flow.

This is all well and good, but that does not stop the game from becoming tedious and boring. The fact that only three fleets are allowed per faction seems reasonable, but it also means that there will invariably be a standoff in which each faction sets up their fleets at chokepoints throughout the map. No-one can make a move because the planetary defenses are largely useless when there isn’t a fleet to assist them, and the fact that every ship but the large dreadnaught is useless means that each fleet is the deadliest possible means that any planet left to its own protection will fall within a turn or two of being left. The outcomes of battles are also random, even when taking into account admirable experience level and strength of the fleet, similar match-ups will have different outcomes without any rhyme or reason. Each faction also has super weapons that can be researched and built, like the Genesis device acting as a galactic nuke, but these rarely changed the course of anything and seemed to be used simply to get them out of the way.

The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine universes are interesting because of the focus on diplomacy as much as combat. Seeing Picard or Sisko work their way out of a hairy situation by wrangling out a deal between their people or two other parties is and was just as interesting as seeing combat. There isn’t anything of the sort here. It goes without saying that a people can be conquered in a number of ways, but here, they can only die by combat. So the option to engage any faction is just that, combat. That really limits what the game can do, considering the board game-style setup would indicate that there was more to do than there is.

The combat itself also fails to engage. (Hah! Get it?) The sim battles seem to random to rely on, but doing nothing but arcade battles draws out all fights, even grossly lopsided ones, so sitting through a bunch of ships shooting at each other with random lines tossed out – “Shields up!” – becomes the norm. The arcade battles aren’t bad, but, as I said, they can drag the game out. The fact that ships have segmented shields also seems as though there is a bit of strategy here, by trying to get enemies to fire on better protected areas, but that isn’t the case as enemy fire simply goes through defended areas regardless due to one area being weak. Going around in circles waiting for phaser banks to recharge and torpedoes to be loaded isn’t bad for a while, but becomes a routine similar to watching paint dry an hour or so into a match. The fact that combat seems futile also dampens things a bit, as enemies seem to steamroll over everything, setting up an actual strategy doesn’t really work as there is no point to it because the game really doesn’t support such. This like strategy ultra light.

Overall: 4/10