Reviews - ShmaZen

The best of the best!

What makes a GRAND mod?

In my opinion, it's not just the sheer adding of features, it's the overall balancing, with focusing on the details and not getting lost while trying to add just as much stuff as possible. *cough*

I've played an early version of this mod, back in around 2005 and was just very disapointed (though it was allready a great mod back then)that my system couldn't handle all the rockets, bullets and beams. It was a slideshow.

Now, almost 7 years later, it's just up to it's time, due to the avaibility of modern gaming systems.

And isn't it just incredible? A 9 year old game/engine feels like it's cutting edge today, with no restrictions!

TFS is just a brilliant example -how much- HW2 was ahead of it's time. It enriches the game with so much more depth and tactical options.
It perfectly simulates naval warfare in space, it runs great, even with dozens of units and even at the end of a MP match it remains playable.

Something that got me really upset while playing Complex or Simple Complex, you've invested quite some time in building up your fleet and when the match is coming to it's peak, it get's unplayable laggy.

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After all, I give this one a 10 out of 10, due to the mindblowing overall experience TFS delivers, there are basically no design flaws present, great performance, great balancing, with other words: It's just freakin' awesome!

Btw.: You can't have everything (as always^^), but I cannot really understand why the single player campaign wasn't rebalanced properly.
There would be just some slight changes necessary, to make it a dealabe experience and in that case you wouldn't only get a perfect MP mod, but also one of the most epic single player campaigns of all time. =)

Finally, something I have ever dreamed of, came to reality: A working, proper made Star Trek Mod for one of my favorite games of all time, Homeworld 2.

While there are still some issues with this version, release Beta, such as slow downs on the map screen, or while zooming in and out, or even at the startup of the mod (I'm getting runtime errors, no matter what I do, but possibly that's just because I'm using the german version), this one is close to perfection in relation to ship selection and the overall quality of the used models and textures and even sounds.

What isn't that perfect and apears a bit disapointing for me, are a few details in relation to the balancing.

There are technologies, that you can research in almost a second, the Nebula class vessel builds in just a few seconds as well, making it theoretically possible to make a "Nebula run".

Besides that, when in a battle, the computer voice is telling you hundreds of times that "Ships are under attack", which get's really annoying after quite some time and is possibly triggered by some weird reason.

Another good, but although disapointing feature is the soundtrack of the mod. - Yes, there is original Star Trek music in the mod, but is it necessary to hear the main Star Trek theme of TNG and one of the movies that often? Aren't there much more subtle and not so generic tracks from almost dozens of OST's from the movies, or maybe even orchestral tracks which are just a good match to the scenery? Maybe.

So after all, I guess I'm just very picky and I don't really think that such a great work deserves that much criticism (<- is that actually a english word? =O_), but with some minor tweaks, a bit of going in to details, this will be what you really want as a Star Trek enthusiast, hands down, and s-loads of Kudos for this master piece in the making.

(And yes, as I've mentioned, I know that my written english could be much better, but I hope you get the point of what I'm saying. ;)