In an age when it takes about 20 people 18 to 24 months to create a computer game, how do bad games get made? Every single person on the team has no knowledge of gaming? Or the team leaders aren't listening to the team members? Whatever way you cut it, this game is one of the worst ever written in any genre. Here's the breakdown:* Fixed perspective on each scene : sometimes you can't see that you're walking directly into danger.
* One handed character? : your character can either use a weapon, a tricorder or press a button. i.e. you have to put your weapon away to activate some equipment. While being attacked by aliens. 'nuff said.
* Repetitive areas : each area in the space station is almost identical. Realistic, some may say. But this is a game - gameplay is the primary concern.
* Story : or rather, a very silly sci-fi plot and a script written by a 6-year-old in crayon on the inside of a Cornflakes packet. Most egregious moment: after having discovered the location of the space station, and even informing your captain of them, you then find yourself flying aimlessly around a nebula in search of said station. Suddenly your character calls out "There it is!", and your ship is directly in front of it. Handy that.
* Voice acting : Patrick Stewart tries, but you can tell his heart isn't in it. And with this script, why should it be? Brent Spiner does his usual. Whoever does the voice of the player character should be sent back to shoveling fries in McDonalds.
* Game depth : there isn't any. 2 hours or so should see this game finished, re-packages and returned to the vendor with a strongly worded letter.
Is there anything good to be said about the game? Well, the music is of atmospheric and of a generally high standard, if a little repetitive. The pre-rendered scenes are nicely done, but you can download nice rendered sci-fi scenes for free off the web. The animation of the characters isn't bad. But all that stuff is cosmetic.
The only hidden evil in this game is the fact that it's still on the shelves, when you could be parting with your money for a good Star Trek game like "Voyager: Elite Force" or "DS9: The Fallen".
If you're unfortunate enough to have already parted with your money for this abomination, you can register your opinion with Activision... Anyone who likes Star Trek will definitely buy this game..." - F.M., Galesburg, IL
and there's the problem.
BTW: I tried to give this a zero rating, but 1 star is the least you can register.
Yet another Star Trek game but this one manages to be faintly intriguing as the crew of the Enterprise (Picard and Data) try to get to the bottom of mysterious goings-on on the planet Ba'ku in a series of events which take place a short time after the end of the Insurrection movie.The plot is nicely paced, never moving too quickly or slowing down to a crawl and the graphics are pretty good for a game of this type. The only thing that provides a negative is the quality of the voice acting, which is all a bit stilted, still for all of that Patrick Stewart injects a suitably Shakespearan tone and Brent Spiner does his best to sound ... faintly robotic :)
All-in-all this is an intersting Trek slant for those who like a slower paced game without all the resource gathering and stilted shoot-em-up-eventually action of games like Armada.
