Star Trek: The Video Game Review - "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a game designer!"

Spock and Kirk take out the writers for this game. 

When it's all said and done, there really isn't too much to say about "Star Trek: The Video Game." It's not a very good game. But it's not a completely terrible one. It's simply a game that borrows wholesale from superior titles and attempts to put forth a "Mass Effect" clone without the incredible graphics or deep storyline. So really not much of a Mass Effect clone at all.

From a story perspective, and the perspective through which I was most eagerly anticipating this game, the game falls pretty flat. A sort-of sequel to the 2009 reboot, the Vulcans are colonizing a new planet that they've creatively titled New Vulcan that is being terraformed by a creation of theirs called the Helios device. (I'm assuming that the shades of the Genesis device from Wrath of Khan are intentional.) The only problem is that a side effect of this device is the fact that it occasionally causes rips in space, forming wormholes that subsequently end up allowing the race of Gorn to emerge. A race of straight up evil lizard people who intend to use the Helios device to take over the galaxy. Apparently. The backstory is there, but it's not strong.

In the meantime, a Starfleet commodore knew that this was going to happen and is very happy about it since this would allow for intergalactic travel with relative ease, consequences be damned. The antagonists are all played very one note and the story between the random areas of shooting is surprisingly sparse and awkwardly paced. Literally the last scene of the game does a smash cut in what appeared to be the middle of the scene into the credits. I honestly threw my hands up out of confusion. Granted, there is a post credit Captain's Log, but the resolution just sort of happens and then the game ends. And this is to say nothing of the very beginning of the game which attempts to hook you in via an in media res scene that's less intriguing and more bizarre.

The gameplay is built around co-op, and while I didn't have a co-op partner with whom to play, the AI Spock did a slightly below adequate job in assisting me. I've seen much worse AI partners, and would have preferred to play alone, but I feel that he was the least of the concerns I had during the game. The controls pretty much did the job even if they didn't feel as responsive as several other triple A titles that it's clearly taking inspiration from. Especially the way that you're forced to scan everything with your tricorder to get the full story. Not my favorite game mechanic. And of course, the game takes on a 100% difficulty increase during the last level which is completely inconsistent from the rest of the game. To me, that just shows a lack of creativity from a design standpoint.

Where the game does shine though is in the performances of all the characters from the movie. In most movie tie-in games, you can hear in the voices of the actors that they're there to collect a paycheck. They don't really act. But here, it's different. They seem to be giving it their all, especially Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The banter seems true to the movie, although it does seem overly contemporary. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban really throw themselves into these characters which adds an air of authenticity that is otherwise lacking in the relatively creepy character models, buggy gameplay, and poorly developed story. (Even here, I can't get over how awesome Karl Urban is in recreating DeForest Kelley's Dr. McCoy. He made me laugh quite a few times throughout this game while listening to his audio logs just by being his cantankerous doctor self.)

The music, though, is exemplary. Michael Giacchino wrote a handful of themes for the game and it was recorded with a 100-piece orchestra. As a fan of his music, as well as a fan of large orchestras, this was definitely an exciting addition to the game, even though in certain sections the music could get very repetitive. Much of that seems to be the problem of the designers and the not the music though, as random cues would just cut in at times repeating over and over.

When all is said and done, is this game worth playing? Not really. Maybe when it gets down to the $20 range, but I could not suggest that anyone play this for the $60 price tag that they're requesting.

Aside: One of the things that really bugged me was the treatment of the Gorn. Now, in the original Star Trek series, the Gorn were a territorial, yet violent race of creatures with massive strength and little agility. Granted, you only saw one in the original series, but it set a precident. They seemed to have none of those characteristics here, except for the violence. And they were most certainly agile. If you're trying to stay true to continuity, this just seemed like an unnecessary change. I believe in one area, they attempt to recreate that type of Gorn, but it wasn't very convincing and he was still pretty large. I'm not married to the continuity (at least not the way that several fans are in their complete dismissal of the reboot), but what's the point of using the name of a character if you're going to change everything they were set up as? Anyway, minor gripe in a game that had a lot larger ones to take care of.

GRADE : C-