As it is implied in the previous section's vocal talent list,
Star Trek Legacy spans all fives series and lets you control ships from the original NX-01 all the way to the latest and greatest Enterprises (not to mention Voyager, Defiant and various other classed vessels in between). During the campaign, you will run into not only Federation ships, but also the Klingons, Romulans and, of course, The Borg. As you progress through the Story mode, these other races become available in the Skirmish Mode.
Skirmish puts you in battles with up to four ships per fleet. These matches come in two flavors, Death Match and Co-Op Wave. These are also the modes of play online when you take your tactics to Xbox Live.
An interesting aspect of the more recent Star Trek games is the attempt to balance out control over your ship's systems and ease of use. Some games (Tactical Assault for the DS) give you a lot of control over various little aspects of your ship, but because of that, force you to go through tons of menus just to do something simple like warp.
Legacy seems to find a nice balance in having only a few secondary controls be accessible via sub-menus that show up on the Hud in-game. These controls are the Energy Allocation Panel, Command Panel and Repair Panel. By holding down a button and using the analog sticks, you can do everything from redirect power from shields to weapons, re-prioritize repair locations and decide whether you want to hail or tractor an object in your sights. I found this game's system of making these commands just outside of my normal access a good solution. I rarely found myself accidentally changing settings in the middle of a battle, and I rarely forgot how to go about making the changes I needed to when I wanted to.
Like most pure ship-to-ship Star Trek games, there are really only a few types of missions and you end up seeing those same styles with only slight variations over and over again. Missions will typically have you flying out to halt a conflict before it gets really bad, escort some ships through some potentially bad areas or have you test out your diplomatic skills. Unlike games like Star Fleet Academy (which offered an interesting mix of ship-combat and action/adventure/puzzle), Legacy hits the same pitfall as its similarly styled brethren and just doesn't offer enough variety to keep you interested for a long time. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the lure of Achievements and the joy of seeing the various ships in their HD splendor, I don't know that I would have gotten as far in this game as I have.
