The recent reboot of the Star Trek franchise has brought a whole new generation in to enjoy the wonders of this illustrious universe, including myself. With the next film in the series being released it seemed the perfect time to bring out the third person shooter Star Trek (Xbox 360) game which is supposed to fill in the gap somewhere between the two films. Seeing it has been developed by Digital Extremes who had a hand in Unreal Tournament and Bioshock you would expect a decent offering for all fans alike.
The basics of the story are that The Enterprise receives a distressing call from a station after they were attacked by the Gorn. These creatures are after the Helios device which the crew were using to terraform New Vulcan and succeeded in stealing this. Now it’s up to Captain James T. Kirk and Spock with a little help from the likes of Scotty, Chekov and Bones to retrieve it then they can close a rip that formed from the use of the Helios in the first place.
All we have on offer here to play is the story mode which is a bit of a shame but just like the good old days of gaming, if the story is played out well then that will do for me, quality over quantity. So it’s a choice now between characters Kirk or Spock, now it depends on your play style as Spock is the more stealth-life whereas Kirk is rather gung ho with his phaser. I went for Kirk but you’ll still have Spock by your side for the duration and in my case controlled by A.I.
Spock trying to find Minesweeper to pass the time.
Here I go onto the endangered space station after a small tutorial of movement etc on the Enterprise; however I come to a part where I need to hack into a control panel of a door to go any further so cue a mini game. This is neat I thought, basic but pretty fun and then the Gorn’s infected innocents are attacking me in droves of three or four. It advises you to stun them rather than kill; this is a deathwish though as you cannot fire the stun charge too often and the cool down seems to take an age. In which time you are pounded to the floor, as is the useless Spock meaning it is time to restart the checkpoint and do it the old fashioned way, shoot to kill.
Needless to say early on in the game it feels like a cycle of hacking into something (where the mini games are simply and become more monotonous), shoot a few enemies after failing to sneak past them (it was Spock’s fault, it always is) and rinse, repeat. Chucking in the towel early like this isn’t me, therefore I went onwards to see the variety within the rest of the game. Unfortunately for the most part it is exactly the same, especially for the on-foot missions. Doesn’t help that the starting weapon is terrible and there are few others to pick up from the Gorn.
What about the other areas, well how do I put this other than almost too simplified, an example involves controlling the Enterprise and shooting incoming attackers. I can shoot them by holding the trigger and wandering the crosshairs about. A whole chapter is dedicated to a Spock mind meld and even now I have no idea how I finished that because I just held my analog stick towards the bright light and wiggled it, there was absolutely no guide or anything.
They've had enough too, time to escape.
The only level I wasn’t completely bored of was when I had to transport Kirk and Spock past various obstacles using time travelling type weapons. It reminded me a little of Portal because you could only use it on specific surfaces and unlike the rest of the game it took a little bit of logical thinking. Whilst I’m giving the positives I will add that it was a bonus to hear and see the likeness of the characters as they are in the films, could have done with a bit more emotion though as it was wooden at times.
The whole gameplay is extremely geared up for co-op with joint hacking, prying open doors or climbing a high ledge and would definitely be a better experience having a real person sharing the boredom *cough* I mean helping you defeat the lizard-like Gorn species. Also I have to mention you can play co-op via Xbox Live or your own console and they can drop in at any point which is pretty cool.
Design wise though when you do eventually venture in the outside world it does feel and look a little bland, not to mention out of date graphically in certain areas.
I can’t think of many people that would gain enjoyment from this game and those who could enjoy it will probably have it ruined by numerous annoying glitches. These include enemies climbing into thin air or Spock running into fires or parts of the background flickering like it can’t cope. Just avoid this until they patch it and you have a co op partner ready to roll who doesn’t mind repetitiveness. Even then I wouldn’t bother.
