Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War

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Starfleet Command 2: Empires at War
Developer(s)	Taldren
Publisher(s)	Interplay Entertainment
Release date(s)	January 21, 2001
Genre(s)	Space simulation
Mode(s)	Singleplayer and Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
System requirements	Pentium III 500 MHz or better. 64mb RAM. 600mb of free hard disk space.

Star Trek Starfleet Command II: Empires at War is the sequel to Star Trek: Starfleet Command.

As February of 2000 was drawing to a close, Interplay Entertainment announced that their division of 14 Degree's East would license out a multi game contract to a relatively new games developer, Taldren Inc.

The first of these games would be the sequel to one of Interplay's best known Star Trek PC games: Starfleet Command.

Still using the basic game engine by Quicksilver who, along with 14 Degree's East members (some of whom would later go on to form Taldren), made the original Starfleet Command game, Taldren decided to give the 2nd outing of the Starfleet Command series a major overhaul. With new graphics, new weapons systems, a completely updated music background, coupled with George Takei (Mr Sulu from The Original Series) reprising his role as captain of the USS Excelsior it proved to be a very well received, and at the same time a very much criticised new game from Interplay.

The biggest visible difference of Starfleet Command 2 was the graphics. Luminosity mapping, damage texturing and shading was added to the graphical engine making Starfleet Command 2 one of the first games released which made the ship's look as real as was possible back in 2001. New races in the form of the Interstellar Concordium and the Mirak Star League was also added to the existing 6 races of Federation, Romulan, Klingon, Gorn, Lyran and Hydran.

The story line of the game revolves around the mysterious Organians who were also a part of the original Starfleet Command game. The Organians return with the Interstellar Concordium in tow to "save the galaxy from itself" by subjugating all other races into an enforced peace. The game was to be followed up with a Starfleet Command volume III which would have told the story of the invasion by the Andromedans, but due to changing fortunes at Interplay, that was not to be.

[edit] Notable Features

The game included a similar combat engine to its predecessor, but with improved stability and better graphics.
The hex-based 'virtual universe' was introduced in this game, and was also adopted by Starfleet Command III.
Some editions of the game shipped with a special bonus CD containing conceptual artwork for the game along with special MP3 files of the in-game music. One of the extra bonus MP3s, entitled 'The End of the Federation', is virtually identical to a piece of music called "Duel of the Fates" from the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The music file is not given a composer or artist name, and is not accessible from the HTML index on the CD. (ex Taldren employee note: It is "Duel of the Fates" which was put on the sound programmers computer as a joke. When it came time to supply files for the bonus disc, the files were 'grabbed' from this programmers machine, including the joke file.)
Several Canon Movie-Era ships were included with the game, all with Phaser-1s, (usually) a pair of Phaser-3s, (usually) rear-firing photons (a rarity in the game), more power systems, and marginally improved shielding. The ships tend to play badly against many of the more advanced ships in the game.