Star Trek: The Video Game

Star Trek: The Video Game. That title along should put the fear into the hearts of any one who plays interactive digital entertainment. The 'Star Trek' part of the title lures you in, 'The Video Game' part is then the twelve inch butcher knife stabbed into your back up to the hilt. The tip of the blade then punctures through your torso as you bleed pure dollar bills into the waiting hands of Digital Extremes, Namco Bandai and Paramount Pictures. At least that's how I felt when the credits ran.

This game is not good. At launch a key component still isn't working on the PC version. That component is actually integrated into the entire game. Co-Op. In Star Trek: The Video Game you play as either Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock. Then you can go online and have a friend play as the character you did not pick. Sounds fun right? Well it might be, if it worked.

I have the PC version with a controller. The Co-Op doesn't work. At all. Period.

Not that it matter much because all the Co-Op amounts to is cooperatively opening doors. Rapidly press X to co-op. UGH!

Ok. Gotta get it together. We haven't even talked about the actually gameplay yet. It's a third person shooter. have you every played a third person shooter before? If you have then you know what to expect. If not then here is a breakdown of the controls: The camera is situated over the character's right shoulder. Left stick moves, right stick controls the camera, triggers shoot, bumpers for Bat-man (more on that in a minute), face buttons for interacting with the environment, weapon swapping, etc, etc.

For the most part the controls are responsive and the game is fully playable. A controller is a must but keyboard and mouse works fine. There are some very strange happenings occurring here however. Buttons will not respond at times. Pull the trigger or click the mouse to fire and there is a full second delay and other times, nothing. Sometimes I will spawn into a scene and, not touching anything, my characters would start running off in a random direction. And one time, I couldn't put the Tricorder away.

Yes, you have a tricorder in this game. You know what's the best part? It turns you into Bat-man. REALLY! Well all you really get is a combination of Bat-Man's Detective Mode form the Arkham games and the scanner in from Metroid Prime. It makes sense in the universe but it looks exactly the same as Detective Vision. Kirk and Spoke can scan just about everything. Weapons, Flora, Fauna, Enemies, yeah, scan everything! It get's you nothing but achievements.

Playing the game you have everything that a third person shooter should have. Let's hit the check list:

-Cover Mechanic = CHECK

-Small handful of enemy types = CHECK

-Grenades = CHECK

-Audio Logs = CHECK

-Hand Guns = CHECK

-Arbitrary Upgrade System = CHECK

-Roady Run = CHECK

-Alien guns that function EXACTLY like human guns = CHECK

-Hold ear to head and walk slowly during dialog sequences = NOPE

Wait. They didn't do the one thing that has plagued games for years. Well, the developers did something right. And you know what, they did something else right. They nailed the looks of the Enterprise. Well sort of. They took the queues from the movie and turned the light bloom to 'OMFG'. All the other locals in the game are brown, brown and darker shades of lazy brown.

The story is forgettable. Vulcans create a MacGuffin that opens a rift in space. The Gorn come through, steal the MacGuffin and kidnap the hot Vulcan lady. Kirk and Spoke must defeat the Gorn, save the Vulcan lady and….you get the idea. Something that really irked me is the utter lack of women in this game. There are three women total. Ohura, Hot Vulcan Lady (named T'Mar) and a random crew member at the very beginning of the game. That's it. There's a mention of McCoy helping a female Gorn but that doesn't count since we never see her.

We also have Starfeet officers calling the Gorn 'creatures' and 'things'. A sentient race, with technology equal to the federation, but don't speak the same language and they are relegated to 'creatures'….

*Surprising so much fanboy rage.*

There are zombies in this game. Bet you weren't expecting to that. The Gorn have little robots that got around infecting people and turning them into zombies. Whiny, cry baby zombies that won't shut up. "I don't want to do this! I can't stop myself! This is NOT MEEEEEE!" You think I'm kidding? Those are direct quotes from the game. I was advised to stun them and then knock them out. Yes, you read that correctly. Stun the zombie, then run up to it and taser it. Stunning only stops them for a brief moment. That's not how stunning works. This is nothing more than mildly annoying them long enough to punch them in the dick! Lore fail.

The game also thinks it's Uncharted at points. There are times when you have to shimmy around the environment. The game also asks you to swim, fly through space, and fly in a wing suit. All of which control terribly and are buggy as hell. Speaking of bugs, at one point I moved the camera and it when INTO KIRK'S HEAD. And you know what? He has individually modeled eyeballs. The effect was creepy as well. And before you ask, yes, there are more. Spoke and Kirk can walk through and into each other. The Gorn can clip through themselves and your AI partner will sometimes just disappear completely only to reappear several rooms later INSIDE YOU!

Star Trek has just about every bad game design troupe from the last five years. Hell, it even has hacking mini games. Three flavors even! And each weapon has an alt fire, that's nearly the same as the normal fire. And each chapter is about twice as long as it needs to be. Go get me these three things, now take those things over here and do two more things with them. And now go over here and make me a sandwich!

The actors from the movie reprise their roles here but it doesn't matter. The banter is as soulless as the corporations that spawned this drivel. I give credit to Chris Pine and the rest of the voice cast, they tried. They really did. I just wish the rest of the development team put in as much effect as the voice cast did.

Star Trek: The Video Game is buggy, broken misogynistic, pandering, overwrought, under developed. money grubbing and stands as an example of everything that is wrong with this generation of games. Don't waste you time or money.

The only positive thing this game has left me with is the phrase "LB to Bat-man." I guess that's something right?

Right?