Hands-on: Dominion Wars

Simon & Schuster dropped by our offices today to give us a look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars. The game takes place during the seasons of Deep Space Nine in which the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans are engaged in a grueling battle against the Dominion and the Cardassians. Dominion Wars attempts to follow the storyline of the show as closely as possible, with missions where you have to evacuate Deep Space Nine, attack various Dominion outposts, and eventually try to retake Deep Space Nine. The game itself can best be described as a friendlier version of Starfleet Command where all the menus and information you need are directly in front of you, so you don't have to go hunting for a menu that displays information on the status of your torpedoes or some similar problem. The only time you actually need to switch between menus is when you're engaged in a battle with an enemy ship--you can switch the status of the movement menu in the lower-left corner so it features more-defensive options like circle-strafing and evasive maneuvers.

The general gameplay is surprisingly similar to that of real-time strategy games. At the beginning of the mission, you encounter a ship load out screen where you select ships and a captain for each ship. The catch is that you have a limited number of credits to spend in selecting the ships and their captains. For example, choosing a galaxy-class ship and an admiral to command it depletes your credit reserves quickly, leaving little room for any kind of support ships. In this screen, you can also decide how many secondary crewmembers--engineers, away team members, and medical officers--you want to have on your ship. The more of a specific type of crewmember you have, the more proficient you will be at performing specific tasks. If you want to repair your ship faster, you need more engineers; if you want a greater success rate in taking over enemy ships, then you want more away team members.

Visually, Dominion Wars looks excellent. Special Deep Space Nine locations like the badlands and the massive station itself are immediately recognizable. Likewise, the ships for all the races in the game--Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Breen, Ferengi, Jem 'Hadar, and Cardassian--are equally detailed, and individual ship panels are clearly visible. Gizmo is still balancing the races in the game, and it's making various adjustments for a better multiplayer experience as well. For more information, take a look at our previous coverage of the game. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars is due out this summer.