Released in early 2000, Star Trek: Armada was a well-built, graphically impressive real-time strategy game that let you command the famous ships of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. The game wasn't overly complicated as real-time strategy games go--the object was to quickly try to gather enough resources to field a large fleet of starships powerful enough to dispose of all the enemy forces. Still, Armada was paced well, had some tactical depth, and was essentially fun to play. Some Star Trek fans felt its fairly simple gameplay didn't do justice to the source material, but most found Armada to be a refreshing change from the typically lackluster Star Trek games that had come before it.

The battles in Armada II are even larger-scale than in the first game.

At any rate, there was certainly room for a good sequel. Some sequels simply expand on the concepts of the original game--they introduce new graphics and a few new features. Other sequels are more ambitious in nature, and Star Trek: Armada II is one of these. You can't tell just on first impression--the look and basic design of the game remain largely identical to its predecessor. However, a number of new complexities have been introduced in Armada II, which make it seem more compelling than the first game from a strategic standpoint. Unfortunately, in practice not all of these new features are successful. In fact, if you enjoyed the original Armada, you might find yourself nostalgic for that game while playing Armada II.

Armada II is the first product from Mad Doc Software, a company founded by one of the key individuals behind some of Activision's successful real-time strategy games, including Dark Reign, Battlezone, and the original Star Trek: Armada. On paper, Armada II sounds like a perfect sequel. In addition to the Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg playable factions from the first game, Armada II also lets you play as the cruel Cardassians and the enigmatic yet decidedly hostile Species 8472, though these two are only available in the skirmish and multiplayer modes. New ships and technologies have been added to each of the returning factions. There's a new, linear campaign consisting of 30 single-player missions--10 for the Federation, 10 for the Klingons, and 10 for the Borg. New tactical options are available--ships can be set into a number of formations, and battles now play out in true 3D space. By comparison, in the original Armada, battles took place on what was essentially a flat 2D playing field. Armada II also adds more layers to the original game's resource model.

Not all of Armada II's gameplay additions are effective, even if they sound attractive. For example, the ability to move your ships in a true 3D environment is just the sort of feature that some of Armada's fans hoped to see in a sequel. Unfortunately, the ability to do battle in true 3D space is really of negligible benefit to the game and actually introduces some new problems to how it plays. Though you can zoom the camera in for a close-up view of your ships, you'll spend the vast majority of your time with Armada II looking at your fleet from a top-down perspective, much like you'd find in most any real-time strategy game. Thus having the ability to move ships "up" and "down" relative to this perspective can be a tricky affair. It's easy enough to do--you use the Shift key, much like in the popular outer-space strategy game Homeworld, to set a destination for your ships along the Z-axis.

New units such as the Borg fusion cubes are impressive and fun to use.

The problem is, at a glance, you can't really tell what's where. What looks like space debris might actually be a fleet of powerful starships too far "down" for you to notice. Meanwhile, ships sent all the way "up" can fill the screen. This can be used to devious effect in multiplayer matches--the relative sizes of your units can be carefully concealed by moving them along the Z-axis, so that even at resolutions exceeding 1024x768, it can be very difficult to tell what sorts of ships you're dealing with. There's a "tactical" view mode that lets you see the action from more of a side angle, which gives a better sense of relative distances between ships, but this view is otherwise disorienting and mostly just adds some cinematic flair to the action. It's not an ideal perspective for actually playing the game. At any rate, the addition of the Z-axis may indeed add a new level of strategy to the combat, but since much of the strategy revolves around taking advantage of flaws in the game's default perspective to trick human opponents, it's not the kind of depth that's entirely welcomed.

In any case, battles just don't last long in Armada II. For one thing, you'll find yourself bringing more ships to the fray than you did in the original game. In Armada, a well-balanced fleet of about a dozen ships could easily sweep across the map. In Armada II, most ships are produced very quickly, but also seem to get destroyed more easily, which means you'll use greater numbers of them. It also means you'll probably ignore the weaker ships and try to work your way up to the stronger, sturdier ones as quickly as possible. This isn't really satisfying--the first Armada gave a pretty good sense that you were indeed commanding powerful starships. When one of your bigger vessels was destroyed, that was a real blow to your force. In Armada II, ships are more expendable. Considering that most of Star Trek is about the drama that takes place aboard these vessels, the idea that they can be thrown wave after wave to their deaths seems misguided.