Star Trek: Bridge Commander and Star Trek: Legacy I never played the first one... don't know why... seems like a cool game... and the second I have but gave up on it early I think. Anyway, in the age of having about a half dozen games I want to play right now... is it worth it?
I never played Legacy and its reception was mixed because of some game design problems and bugs. Bridge Commander however is still a lot of fun to play if you want to experience what it is like to be flying a Starship. (the Captain's role is kind of diminished because your first officer seems to be running the show most of the time, and the AI of the tactical officer is a bit limited so you might want to do the flying and fighting yourself). The game is a bit dated now in looks but there are plenty of mods to fix that up (are the higher quality character models BTW?), including of course the Kobiyashi Maru mod. And there is a fan project to create a spiritual sequel to Bridge Commander called Excalibur, look it up.
Bridge Commander is excellent. Once you complete it, come back and we'll make MOD recommendations for you! Legacy was awful. I never finished it.
The main draw with legacy is the actual cast members doing their voices, but even that makes it not worth playing? How long does BC take to win? What do the mods change?
There are some problems with the gameplay as I mentioned earlier, controls I think but also the save system (I believe you can only save between missions and there are no check points), it also has some problems with running properly from what I read in some people's opinion pieces. It is also a bit half assed in design, apparently some parts were never properly finished or rushed. hence why there was some mod project to finish some of the problems. BC mods, well they can update models and replace textures, they can add new systems, ships, and weapons. There is however no story based mods or campaigns, probably because it is quite difficult to make something like that for Bridge Commander (there is not a SDK for it so you would have to understand script writing among other things). A bit of a shame really, I hope Excalibur works out well and that it can be made mod friendly for single player projects. BTW, I really warn you with putting Kobiyashi Maru on Bridge Commander before you finish the campaign. It balances the ships to the standards in the shows but as a result some hostiles become a lot more stronger and can for example quicker destroy targets you are suppose to protect.