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Star Trek Armada II at E3 2001

The Specs

Armada II is being developed by Mad Doc software, which consists of former Activision employees who worked on the first Armada and some former Looking Glass guys. This sequel takes the basics of the first game and adds two new races (the Cardassians and Species 8472), new ships for all the races, and a three new single player campaigns, one each for the Federation, the Klingons, and the Borg. You can now build on planets, which basically took up space in the first game. During combat, you can target specific parts of a ship when you attack, giving the component system more interaction with the gameplay. Warp drives lets ships essentially teleport across the map, which are now larger than they were in the first game. A new pop-up menu system will preserve some of the best elements of the first's Armada's interface while making it easier to use, even if you're playing from the 3D tactical view.

The Speculation

Tom's Comments: There doesn't seem to be a substantial difference between Armadas II and I, but that's not necessarily a bad thing -- the first Armada could have been good had it been given a brain. I'm not sure what went wrong, since Armada's lead programmer, Ian Davis, was a impassioned AI guy. Davis left Activision and founded Mad Doc, where he's now working on Armada II. Let's hope this time around he manages to get in a smarter single player game. If so, Armada II should be everything Armada I was supposed to be. At the very least, it'll make for a good expansion to Armada I.

Mark's Comments: Armada was a game long on pretty graphics and interesting gameplay ideas, but very short on execution. Activision failed to deliver before, so I'm skeptical about this one, but I'm also hopeful.

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May 22, 2001