Star Trek: Armada is, to put it quite frankly, a masterpiece. It has excellent graphics, five campaigns (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Borg and a special "Finale" set of missions), four races, each with both familiar ships from the Star Trek series (e.g. the Sovereign, Defiant, and of course the Borg Cube) and also several new vessels (e.g. the Romulan Shadow class). The game also has an involving storyline.
After watching the impressive intro movie, which shows the return of the Omega Particle, Locutus of Borg, Romulan Admiral Sela and would-be Klingon usurper Toral, you get to choose from one of the four initial campaigns, or an Instant Action/Multiplayer mode.
The Federation missions are your basic introduction - they introduce you to the game's controls and are not too challenging. They also set up a fair few of the game's plots - the first mission introduces the USS Premonition, a Federation ship from the future, and our favourite bad guys, the Borg, who are back with a nice new plot. The second mission introduces Worf, who has his own little adventure which carries on into the Klingon campaign, and the third mission introduces his nemesis, Toral (he is the House of Duras' claimant to the Klingon throne,
introduced in The Next Generation). The fourth mission advances the Borg plot a bit, showing the beginning of their invasions of the Alpha Quadrant. All-in-all, the Federation missions aren't too challenging, and offer a good introduction to the basic feel of the game - moving ships, building stations, mining resources and the like.
The Klingon missions are harder than the Federation missions - no question about it. The first mission has you seeking out a Borg base (or rather, about 6 Borg bases - it can be quite annoying finding them all) and destroying it. Nothing too hard, as long as you keep a nice balance of ships. The second mission involves a lot of waiting around building up your base. A lot. Then a massive rush-to-the-wormhole. It's fun, as long as you don't let your guard down. The third mission is (another) Klingon civil war - Martok vs Toral, above the homeworld Qo'noS. This can be fairly hard since you can be under attack on two fronts if you're not careful. The fourth mission introduces the Romulans - it's another destroy-the-base mission. But you get to see the Warbird, the best ship ever. So sad that you have to destroy them.
The Romulan missions tend to focus more on stealth than force. In the first mission, you have to send a spy to infiltrate a Klingon base, then ambush and capture a Klingon battleship. The second mission involves fighting two enemies at the same time - the Ferengi and the Cardassians - in order to gain the ultimate prize. This can be a tricky level, but it's still one of my favourites. The third level can be extremely tricky and annoying. You have to maneuver your group of ships through a map littered with enemies attacking from all directions. The fourth level is my personal favourite in the whole game - you fight with the Borg against Toral's Klingon forces, so that you can form an alliance with the Federation and Klingons -against- the Borg. Confusing, eh? It all becomes clear in this mission.
The Borg missions focus on two main goals - obtaining the Omega Particle, and assimilating the Alpha Quadrant. In the first mission, you're fighting the Dominion in order to gain control of a cloning facility - guess how they got Locutus, whom you saw in the intro movie? That's right, he's a clone. The second mission pits you against the Romulans, and also a fairly rag-tag group of other enemies including Federation science vessels, Dominion and Breen ships, and a Klingon mining outpost. The third mission pits you against Species 9341, who are resistant to assimilation (Species 8472, anyone?). They have a crew-killing weapon that can be...annoying, to say the least. Basically, you have to kill them all. Can be tricky, if all your ships suddenly become derelict. The fourth mission is the one that we all secretly want to play - you attack the Federation at Earth. It's slightly unfair that you start off with just a group of ships and the Federation has its entire Earth Defense Force, but thats why the mission is so great. If you win, it ends with a Borg battle squad moving past an assimilated Earth.
This brings us onto the finale missions, in which you get to play as the combined Federation, Romulan and Klingon forces attacking the Borg to destroy the Omega Particle. In mission one, you have to escort Ambassador Spock (yay! Spock!) to a peace conference between the Romulans and Klingons, to get them to assist the Federation against the Borg. In the second mission, you have to fight the fourth Borg mission again, just from the other side of the coin - as the Federation. Also, unlike in the fourth Borg mission, the Borg start off with a fully built base in this one. Unfair or what? In the third and fourth missions, it details the Allied incursion into Borg space to destroy the Omega Particle. Needless to say, there are a LOT of Borg here.
So all in all, the campaigns are challenging, especially if you've got the difficulty set to "hard". But it's all worth it to see that assimilated Earth...just kidding. But it's definately worth playing.
There is also an online multiplayer mode, as well as an Instant Action mode where you play against up to seven AI players. These modes are basically just build-up-your-base-and-attack, and can be just as challenging, sometimes more challenging, as the Single Player.
The graphics in the game are awesome - the ships have great detail, and the dangerous nebulas even have lightning bolts surging through them. They get 9/10.
The gameplay is good - no two games are ever the same, and each can take hours to complete. It gets 9/10 also.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this game to both trekkies and RTS lovers alike. It is truly a masterpiece.
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