I’m fairly new to the Star Trek universe. Just recently I’ve started watching all of the TV shows and movies, starting with the original Star Trek and I’m currently nearing the end of The Next Generation TV series. So naturally I’m excited for the newest Star Trek movie, Into Darkness. However as a gamer, I know that most video games based off of a movie tend to fail, so my excitement towards the Star Trek video game was not matched with that of the movie.
About the Game
Star Trek is set between the first movie and Into Darkness, making it canonical. It was built with co-op play in mind. You can either take control of Kirk or Spock, both of which play a little differently. Kirk is the fighter and Spock is of course the more logical one. The Gorn from the 1960’s Star Trek TV show are back and are the main villain in this video game. Not only do they have a returning villain but the voice cast from the two Star Trek movies took part in the game. This does bring life to the game because honestly, if they didn’t have the actors playing as their video game persona, this game would be less appealing. Not to mention that you can explore the Enterprise! That was a plus. So we have the Gorn, who are trying to steal a device that will help the Vulcans to create a new home world. The story itself is decent but was it enough to keep playing?
Gameplay
You can play this game online, local co-op or as a single player game. I tried local co-op and I almost died. I found the split screen to be terrible and hard to look around. I actually had to stop and play solo. Playing alone isn’t that bad since you can command the other character to do stuff for you. I played as Kirk and I had Spock take care of the hacking and covering my back. However Spock didn’t see it that way. During firefights, I would be the one shooting while Spock just stood there. I found myself yelling at the TV because my partner wanted to be passive. When he did want to fight, Spock would run head first into a battle, making me the one to save his Vulcan butt more than a few times over. The A.I. wasn’t that great, obviously, and I felt that I wasn’t playing a game with two characters, but with one. This was enough to cause frustration, however I kept playing. I kept telling myself that the story is worth the terrible A.I., the glitches, oh, did I forget to mention that? Kurt found himself inside of a wall a few times. I guess the beaming technology still needs some work.
Final Thoughts
Star Trek isn’t the worst game out there and even with its faults, hardcore Star Trek gamers might want to give it a go. Personally, as a new Star Trek fan, the fandom is bright and new to me. Making this game a disappointment. I tried to look at it from a fan and a gamer’s perspective and the gamer in me won. This game feels like it was glued together with cheap paste from kindergarten. Games based off of movies never do well (unless we’re talking about Riddick) and we tend to have high expectations of them, especially if we are fans. I came into Star Trek knowing this and as much as I wanted to enjoy this game, sadly, this is the worst game I have played in 2013 thus far. Not the worst game overall, just for this year. The story is good, the concept as well, but the game for me got to be too repetitive and the glitches and poor A.I. started to take their toll with me. I would have to give Star Trek a five out of ten. Bandai Namco tried but Star Trek falls short.
For the purpose of this review, Star Trek was played on the XB360 video game system.
