Cont'd from Part One

The big new feature in Starfleet Command II is, uh, Dynaverse 2.  Dynaverse.  It sounds like a new line of washing machines from Maytag.  But it's the thought that counts: the developers knew how senseless the campaign could be in the first game, so they set out to create something new, something exciting, something special, something different and unique.  Something that isn't finished yet.  But that's no reason not to ship a game.  Oh, look, it's Christmas.  A feature missing from a Christmas release? How novel.

Since I'm not exactly sure what Dynaverse 2 is, I go to the relevant section in the manual.  The relevent section is a lone vague paragraph.  Seems the writer of the manual isn't exactly sure what Dynaverse 2 is either, which is hardly surprising -- if Dynaverse 2 isn't finished now, it certainly wasn't finished when the manual writer was writing the manual.  Dynaverse is still a mystery to me.  Like God.  Did you know that in one of the Star Trek movies, the crew of the HMS Enterprise actually meets God?  This is where you go when you've exhausted time travel as a plot device.  The next step is God.

Senior-friendly documentation

The manual is cheaply bound and features enormously oversized print.  I can read this manual from across the street without my glasses.  I suppose this makes up for the tiny buttons in the game, but my corneas are getting whiplash going from the manual to the game. To Interplay's credit, it's a thorough manual with plenty of information on the tactical aspects of the game.

While Interplay and crew finishes making the game I've already paid for, I decide to try the single player campaign, which looks like it's supposed to be a sort of consolation prize version of Dynaverse 2.  "THE ONLINE DYNAVERSE 2 IS PLAYED IN VERY MUCH THE SAME WAY AS A CAMPAIGN," the manual shouts in 16-point boldface sans serif font, "DIFFERENCES WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED IN A NOTE."  The mysterious "note" never shows up, but there is another loud passage later that proclaims loudly the obvious fact that you must log in to play Dynaverse 2 online.

I start my first non-Dynaverse 2 campaign as a Romulan.  For those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek, the Romulans are a race of people who have frowny eyebrows and pointy ears; think of them as peeved elves with space ships.  There's a long loading time during which I stare at a briefing screen with artwork and flavor text.  When the game is done loading, I have to click through three more briefing screens of artwork and flavor text.  Now I'm staring at a cramped window of a hex map with miles of black desktop surrounding it.  I can look at a long scrolling list of stuff that don't fit in the window.  All this stuff refers to the hex map by coordinates but it also opens in the interface's sole window so I can't see the hex map.  There's no place to look at my own ship or my officers.  There's no convenient indication of what's happening, where it's happening, or why it's happening.  It all seems to happen, however, in real time, since I see missions disappear out from under me while I'm trying to figure out what's happening.

It's pretty obnoxious for Starfleet Command II to make so little effort to help me play the campaign.  Information is spread out beyond the limits of a single window, across several zoom levels, on separate screens, or just not included.  There's no explanaiton of how each hex's defense, economy, and impedence (yes, impedenence) factor into the game.  The whole presentation is sloppy and overbearing.  It's like someone eating chips from a bag who drops bits of the chips into your carpet while you're watching and doesn't even bother to pick them up.  It sits there are stares at you unabashedly, refusing to help.

Cont'd: Get out the vacuum cleaner