Back in the early days of my blog I wrote about Glamour Age. I was not impressed. It followed the lines of most Facebook days back in the day: a webpage that had to refresh every time, and doing the same thing over and over and over. With the emergence of Flash into Facebook games have started changing for the better. The -ville games all have a bit of fun to offer, weather it’s putting together a farm, or making a zoo. But the game that truly caught my attention was one that appealed to my inner geek: Starfleet Commander.
At it’s core Starfleet Commander is a simple game. Like most other Facebook apps it has missions. You get things by going on missions, which let you do other things further down the road. The game goes deeper than that though, deeper than any of the old Facebook games. In addition to missions you get to build things. Ore Mines, Crystal Mines, Hydrogen Synthesizers, etc. Each building produces different resources which you need to build more buildings, and eventually to produce ships and defenses. But the game goes farther still, in addition to buildings you get to research things, and put together defenses. The game also has a good rating system, so you always know where you stand in your Galaxy. Add the fact that you can invite friends (like any Facebook app) and make alliances, and you have a Facebook game with a suprising amount of detail.
The next major improvement that Starfleet Commander adds is the timing system. In old games you had a set amount of energy, and at the end of it you were done. The end. Come back tomorrow. Starfleet Commander has timed missions. Sending a ship out for some ore takes about two minutes to accomplish, and about a minute for your ship to come back home. Once it’s back you can send it out again. As much as you want. You will never see a bar that says “you are out of energy.”
It’s not all roses though. The game still requires that you have friends before you can go out and do anything truly interesting, and the missions have you doing the same thing over and over. It’s the feel of the missions that really gets to me though. This is a game that has the name “Starfleet” in it. You know, the people with the prime directive, and the ones that won’t attack enemy ships unless pressed, even when they are in the Delta Quadrant? Why is it then that out of two of the first three missions I get, I’m going on raids? Instead of Starfleet I feel like I’m playing the Maquis or the Romulans. It definitely doesn’t leave me feeling like one of the good guys.
As far as Facebook games go I give the game four out of five stars. In real game rankings maybe a two out of five. It is fun for a free game, and if you insist on wasting time on Facebook apps like I seem to, than it is a good use of your time.
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