Others say...

"Great game all the way around."
Loved this game. Great even in skirmish mode. The federation missions are a blast as are the klingon and they play much differently because the ships are different play styles and strategy. If some reviewers don't think there is strategy to this game, then obviously they played it like some stupid sci fi shoot em up instead of the methodical game it is. The better you do, the more you unlock allowing different kinds of ships for multiplayer or skirmish. I HIGHLY recommend this game for anyone.

"Waste of Money"
I don't like long reviews, so I'll keep it short. This game is poorly put together and simply not fun to play. Please don't waste your money.

"Tired retread of old ST games - boring and unimaginative"
Star Trek Tactical Assault - I was really looking forward to this game for my PSP - the ability to command starships on my PSP made this Star Trek fan really excited. Imagine my disappointment when I fired up the game and the first screen, a Star Trek quote had the word "Dr. MCoy" (sic) misspelled! This didn't bode well for the gameplay that followed. Navigating through the menus, I was aghast to see the individual low polygons on the starships - these ships have never looked worse in a Star Trek game, unless you go back to the days of DOS or Windows 95. The designs for the Federation and Klingon ships are unimaginative, and not based on anything in Star Trek lore (except for a couple signature vessels) - they look really slapped together. A Destroyer has two warp pods underneath, the Dreadnought three on top, same markings, same drab textures, same hacky modeling. The gameplay is "Starfleet Command - ultralite". But it is really boring. You basically, give the ship some throttle, then spin in circles until your ship's weapons come on line. Spin, fire, spin again, fire again, blow up your enemy or be blown up - sounds really fun, doesn't it - NOT!

The game takes place in 2d space (no ability to move in 3d) - so you have amusing situations where you are hovering on top of your enemy - no damage from ramming, you're just able to (unrealistically) fire over and over again, and the enemy too. It looks really bad.

Another ill-informed design choice was to remove the player from targetting mode when he is about to impact one of the objects in space. This is because you are typically running away from your enemy to fire rear weapons, and so you can't really see where you're going. But it is hard to reacquire your enemy quickly after you have dropped them. There are several better choices that could have been made here (like giving the player the option of "auto-avoid"). It's just bad and unimaginative again.

I am really thrilled that EB Games was nice enough to take this waste of plastic back - I really felt like a sucker after buying this game.

Send a message to Bethesda, Quicksilver and CBS Paramount that hack, retread Star Trek games [Star Fleet Armada III? = Legacy; Star Fleet Command 4 UltraLite = Star Trek Tactical Assault] won't be tolerated - don't buy this turkey. It isn't even worth $1 - maybe the unsold copies would make good landfill though, although I suspect the trash birds would probably gag on it.

Couldn't give this "0" stars or I would have.

"Pocket Starfleet Command"
Pros
- a pocket version of Starfleet Command (SFC) that you can carry around.
- opening menus are very nicely done.
- contains campaign, skirmish and multiplayer modes.
- compaign plays like in SFC. You finish a mission and it awards you upgrade points that you can use to assign to your crew to improve your ship's performance (so it's like upgrading in RPGs).
- You are incrementally awarded command of better ships as you progress thru the game.
- Skirmish is instant action mode where you can choose from fighting in 1 to 4 teams of either ally or enemies simultaneously.
- AI is not bad. Enemies will keep their exposed shields away from you and cloak and re-appear on your weaker side to attack.
- Missions do not have to result in a large fight. By hailing ships negotiations are possible in certain levels.
- Load times are very fast compared to other PSP games.
- User interface is easy to handle.

Cons
- game graphics is under-detailed and quite aliased.
- sound effects are rather weak.
- gameplay is repetitive. You are constantly circling each other firing at openings.
- space scenes are not dense enough (nor interesting enough) so there is limited ability to use asteroids etc for a tactical advantage.
- no ability to beam commandos to take over other ships.
- no tractor beam to hold ships.
- ie it is a really watered down SFC.
- no targeting of specific systems so hull damage is defined as on the whole ship.

The short load time suggests that more could have been done but wasn't just to play it safe with this first release.

Buy this at full price if you want to encourage them to release future versions. Otherwise wait for it to come down in price.