Sound & Graphics

Ah, a good note!

Sounds effects are few and far between in Starfleet Command 2. However, they are all used appropriately. When commanding a Federation ship, the player gets a pleasant female voice at the helm, giving out (or passing on) orders. Buttons chirp and click in a typical Star Trek fashion and the music is appropriately calm.

Klingon ships, on the other hand... orders are barked out by a man who sounds more like a gorilla with a speech impediment. The music sounds like some very, very angry Germanic Wagner classical pieces and the sound effects have a manly, strong sound. Thumbs up for everything except actual Klingon speech. We're sure that someone out there would appreciate that subtle touch.

Uuuuugly

Nevermind, he's uglier

The other races have their own distinct sounds and layouts as well, but all in all, there's nothing much to say about the sound in SFC2. The effects are used sparingly but to good effect, while the music always suits the situation and the race involved. Likewise, speech is rarely used but always in the proper situation, and the voice acting in on the ball the whole time, no major mishaps.

Grainy, flaky, gooey

Graphics are generally "good enough" in Starfleet Command 2. No one will have to pick his jaw off the floor or even raise an eyebrow, but Starfleet Command 2 holds its own and passes the eye-appeasement test. There really isn't too much for SFC2 to be flashy about - after all, we're dealing with very primitive and static models for the most part. You have red phasers, yellow phasers, green disruptors, and glowing red stars for photon torpedoes.

Whoah that thing takes the cake!

Talk about a loaded ship!

The interface is generally cluttered, especially at the strategic level, but once you get down to the tactical view, it gets much better. A great deal of effort was made to highlight differences between the races by adding graphical changes to the interface, and the effort clearly works.

With extended play, say 15-30 minutes, I began to experience serious graphical glitches with SFC2. We don't know if this is simply a driver issue or a game issue, but it seems to be a fairly rare problem, judging by the message boards... unlike other bugs plaguing the game.

Hehe cheese out with the big fleet ;]

Command and Control

The strangest thing about SFC2's graphics is that the starships manage to look grainy at all but the highest resolutions. This is rather disappointing, since the minimum resolution available is 800x600. Changing resolutions has another drawback as well - the strategic interface doesn't scale up or down. If you play at 1280x960, the interface will only use a tiny portion of your screen, as it is only setup for an 800x600 screen. Fortunately, the tactical combat aspect does stretch to fit the higher resolution!