The USS Enterprise’s mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before. Unfortunately, the latest “Star Trek” game isn’t particularly bold and goes where many have gone before.
The T-rated adventure game from Bandai Namco arrives just a few weeks before the film “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” In the “Trek” timeline, it’s nestled between J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot movie and the upcoming flick.
The action revolves around Capt. Kirk and Spock, his Vulcan first officer. The game is designed to be played cooperatively, with each player controlling one of the Star Fleet officers. In solo play, artificial intelligence takes one of the roles and it does reasonably well in performing the game’s many cooperative activities.
Your mission is to defeat the reptilian Gorns, who have slipped into our galaxy through a rip in space caused by a contraption designed by the Vulcans. After stealing the device, the Gorns escape back through the rip with the Enterprise in hot pursuit.
Kirk and Spock spend most of their time blasting away with phasers and an assortment of alien weaponry. They frequently stop to hack computers, unlock doors and activate machinery. There’s also a good bit of climbing, leaping and swimming. You could almost say “Star Trek” plays like some sort of “Tomb Raider in Space.”
Unfortunately, it’s not nearly that interesting. Some of the enemies are so dimwitted that you can walk past them without drawing their fire. The overabundant hacking sequences get tedious. And the platforming is very rudimentary.
What might be worse is that there’s actually very little story or character development, just a lot of running, gunning and hacking. Overall, the game feels very shallow — lots of action but no real depth or substance. Sure, I did have some fun with the game, but it was pretty mindless and ephemeral.
The graphics follow the same trend. The settings and characters lack texture and detail. The humans move woodenly, unless they’re gliding over the ground as if by magic.
Interestingly, the characters’ faces are pretty good representations of the actors in the current batch of “Star Trek” movies. That and the fact that the actors provided some excellent dialogue, help lend some credibility to the effort.
Bottom line: “Star Trek” offers a bit of fun, but ends up being pretty forgettable.
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Online: www.startrekgame.com
