Star Trek: The Game Review

Hey guys and gals for this review we are going to a galaxy far far away...or are we boldly going  where no man has gone before? I can't remember. Enough talking lets energize straight to the review.

As a Trekkie myself I was excited about J.J.Abram's Star Trek Into The Darkness but as with all major blockbuster films there is always going to be a game that either ties into the story of the movie or takes a different route in the form of spin-offs or a completely different story. Star Trek: The Game sees our dynamic duo Spock and Captain James T. Kirk as they receives a distress call from a space station. There is too much interference to beam the crew aboard, so Captain James T. Kirk and Spock take a shuttle to rescue the crew. They encounter T'Mar, a childhood friend of Spock, who explains they were gathering energy to power the Helios device, which would speed up the terraforming of New Vulcan, but in the process opened a Rip in space. This rip allowed a new enemy for Spock and Kirk to fight called the Gorn who manage steal the Helios device.

Gorn in 1967...not very scary 

Gorn in 2013...these guys must be on steroids

 From the get go you have the option to either pick between Spock or Kirk and this is not just for cosmetic reasons, each character has their own gameplay techniques. Kirk is more of an all out action packed character that is focused on getting the job done no matter what while Spock has a more stealthy approach to situations and can use the deadly Vulcan death grip and the infamous mind meld which will give you immediate access to doors that would normal would have to be hacked via a mini -game.
Ah yes the mini-games, if you love mini-games left right and center then you will enjoy Star Trek even more but for those of you who despise them you can command your AI partner to complete the mini-game for you, sure it takes longer but if you have had enough this is a nice way to take a breather. Star Trek looks to be designed around the co-op aspect of the game for there are many events throughout the game that require your AI partner to help you from prying open doors to hacking systems at the same time, in theory this works but in-game not so much for if your human partner is a douche things can get dicey pretty fast.

As with all games these days you will along your journey gather experience points which can be used to upgrade your weapons and your abilities. Both Spock and Kirk have different weapons and abilities so in order to purchase each ability you will have to play though the game a few times dedicated to a certain character which on a side note you can't change between Spock and Kirk between missions or during gameplay. Whilst I was playing Star Trek the whole moving cover mechanic reminded me of Ghost Recon: Future Solider were you aim at the piece of cover you want to move to and hold down the prompted button, this type of cover system has been done to death but in the fire fights between you and the Gorn are hardly challenging. 

Sometimes the Gorn forget how to fight

Now AI in games should be up to a good standard but Star Trek's AI is unfortunately one of the worst Iv'e come across for the Gorn who just move from cover to cover and hardly shoot can make the game less fun than what it actually is, even your AI companion just stands there and doesn't do much but enjoys the scenery so it's basically you versus the entire game this coupled with tedious mini-games can really make Star Trek unplayable.          

99.99% of movie games suck and this applies with Star Trek: The Game for terrible AI and more mini-games than you can count can really get you down however the positive thing about Star Trek: The Game is that its a Star Trek game, many people who enjoy the Star Trek franchise will enjoy the game due to its ability to let you play as two of the most iconic sci-fi characters of all time. So would I recommend it? Yes but only if you can get it cheap or if you are a hard core Trekkie who just wants to kick Gorn ass as Spock or Kirk.