Graphics

Ships, Ships, and more Ships

There's not a whole lot in outer space. This translates to very few background objects to render in Dominion Wars. Because of this, Gizmo dumped all of the polygons into the ships - the right move on their parts. The ships in Dominion Wars look great. They're probably the best recreations of the ships from the shows and movies we've seen in a Star Trek game. Granted, you won't see every detail, like people hanging out in ten-forward, but you will be surprised that the intricacy of the models. Warp nacells shimmer when jumping into warp, photon torpedoes flicker and rotate, and shields glisten as they're damaged.

A lot of races are involved in the Dominion War, and you'll see most of them in the game. The Federation is obviously there, allied with the Klingon Empire. The Dominion have the Jem'Hadar, Cardassians, and the Breen. You'll see other races as well, including the Ferengi, Romulans, and the Maquis (yes, they're not a race but they do have their own ships).

New Cardassian Tonga

Cardassian Hideki

Speaking of ships, there are over 30 ships in Dominion Wars. You'll see a lot of ships from the show, including the Federation's Defiant and Galaxy class ships (no, not the Enterprise-D, it blew up in Generations, remember?). Klingons have their warbirds and battle cruisers, while the Cardassians have the Norn class of ships. Gizmo Games struck Trekkie gold with Paramount and got the go-ahead to design their own ships. You'll see the new Achilles class Federation ship - it's reminiscent of the Voyager, but with a flat, sharp design geared toward combat. There's also a Jem'Hadar super carrier that launches fighters, and a Klingon super cruiser among the new ships. All of the new ships have the look and feel of the TV series, as they were all approved by Paramount before Gizmo put them in the game.

Dominion Wars will also allow you to import your own ships from Simon & Schuster's Star Trek Starship Creator Warp II. Don't look for any space to abuse the system, however. Warp II already has limits on ship design, and Dominion Wars will scale ships as they are imported.

Klingon K't'inga

New Jem'Hadar battle cruiser

Damage modeling

One of the coolest features in Dominion Wars is the damage model. All objects have dozens of damage states. As a ship takes damage, you'll see it clearly reflected on the ship's hull. Targeting their engines? They'll eject plasma if they're out of commission, and fall off if you keep shooting them. Ship hulls with darken, scar, and eventually rip apart as they take damage. Electricity will course over a ship until you're engineers can repair the damage.

Not just ships

Besides the ships, Dominion Wars has orbital weapons platforms, star bases, sensor arrays, shipyards, and even Deep Space Nine. And, if you really want to, you can blow any of these objects up (although some of them will fight back).

Dominion Wars does spruce up the emptiness of space. You'll fly plenty of missions in the Badlands, yellow nebulae lighted by constant lightning storms (yes they disable your shields, just like the show). You'll also fight around planets, star bases, and regular nebulae.