I consider myself to be one of the biggest Star Trek fans around. Ok, I don’t dress up in the uniform, but I am old enough to “grok Spock”. When I was asked to review Star Trek Legacy game for the PC, I was looking forward to it. I liked all four TV shows, and a game based on all the shows, and including the actors? What could be better?

Right out of the gate, I wasn’t that impressed. The voice over acting by Scott Backula for the opening sequence sounds like his read his lines in a sound booth, and they just pasted them over the vignette. Very little emotion - very little in the way of convincing me that I’m listening to Jonathan Archer.

The game starts off with a tutorial, which is handy, because reading the manual really gives no help. The manual gives you a few instructions on which keys do what, but nothing really in the way of guidance of when to use the sensors, or when to go to warp, etc. The tutorial starts out simple enough. You’re taken to a planet, and you need to scan the planet for a wrecked ship.

After the scan is negative, you need to go to the next planet in the system and search there. Now, the game started to fall apart for me. You’re constantly told to go to warp, but the game doesn’t tell you that you can only go to warp on the tactical map. Then, you drop out of warp for no reason, and have to do it all over again.

When you finally make it to the planet (the third time I played to this point, I just went there on full impulse and ignored the ‘go to warp’ messages), you’re immediately attacked by Romulans. I imagine this is to give you the instructions on how to use the weapons systems. The problem I have is that at this point, I’m playing a video game port. I need three hands, since two need to run the keyboard, and the third needs to control the mouse – the mouse is used to rotate your VIEW, not your ship, as well as target your enemies. I imagine that if I had a console controller, where all the controls were at my fingertips, it might be easier.

The other problem I have is that I can’t play first person shooter games. I get naseous very easily. That’s what the combat turned into, essentially. The fight was moving faster than the tutorial, and so I ended up free floating in space, burning, while the warbirds kept pounding my ship, and the tutorial was saying things like ‘now close one eye and while using your left index finger to press the J key, and your right pinky to use the mouse wheel” – or something like that. I was a bit distracted by the burning wreckage and screams of my crew…or maybe that was my screams.

It appears this game is aimed more at those who have good FPS skills. I am not one of those people, unfortunately. I really wanted to like this. I tried starting over several times. I think I’m going to have to wait for some other version of Star Trek to come around – one that doesn’t require me to have a space-sickness bag next to the keyboard.