sci-fi

Well, I read the user reviews and went ahead and got the game anyway, and I'm glad that I did!

This game is a fun shooter with a great Star Trek story around it. It starts out with an accident that sends your ship, with Capt. Sulu at the helm, into the mirror universe (introduced in the episode where Spock had a goatee.) The rest of the game is basically about your efforts to get back to the "normal" universe. Right off the bat, the one good thing about this setting is that you get to go up against all the federation ships, since the federation is your enemy in the mirror universe! You ultimately have to make friends with the Klingons and the Romulans who'll in turn help you to get back to the "normal" universe. The story includes a lot of references to the original series, so I really enjoyed it.

As for the graphics, all the ships in the game look exactly like I remember them from the show and the scale is dead-on accurate. The backgrounds are nicely done, not just dull black space, but a lot of nebula's, planets, and stars to add to the whole feel of the game. As for sound, the music is OK, but what I really liked was playing the game on my surround-sound system. It's great to hear photon torpedoes coming at you from behind!

Where the game falters a bit is in the physics, which are very rudimentary (you pretty much just bounce of other ships) but for me it didn't distract much from the game. The controls are also standard space-combat fare.

At first I was a little apprehensive of this game. As far as I was aware fighter-style combat is not something that there is a lot of in Star Trek.
However, after giving this game a fair hearing I was pleasantly surprised. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the graphics which are very crisp and clean for a Playstation game, and there is very little sign of the pixelisation normally encountered. The ships look great, especially the capital class ships, which look fantastic and authentically styled (especially the Original Series Constitution ships, they are damn perfect!). The story line, though featuring a few poor character animations is compelling, edgy and very true to the canon of Star Trek, especially the nods to the orginal series of which there are many. Both of the celebrity voice actors (Geogre Takai and Walter Keonig) reprise their roles as Sulu and Chekov well, and really add atmoshere to the plot.
As for the game itself, the learning curve is admittedly steep (I was rather shocked when I had to take on 4 Federation Battlecruisers virtually single handedly in my fighter!) but thanks to a well designed combat system it is up to the player to discover the tactics necessary to defeat your adversaries, including the phaser blind spots on capital ship and the correct weapons to use. All the major races' craft are featured, and all in all it is a fine game, well designed and balanced.
The only bad point as far as I'm concerned is the repetition of a couple of the mission types, but as I enjoyed it so much I am happy enough to brush over what seems to be a bit of padding in the mission structure. As there are relatively few space flight combat games on the PS2 I think that this a good example of the genre.
At least its easier than Blast Radius on the PSX!

I admit it... the package got me. On the front cover is a ship that looks like the Enterprise, locked in the heat of battle against other ships. I believed that I would be piloting the Flagship of the Federation against evil versions of the good guys.

Wrong.

Firstly, you're in the Excelsior, not the Enterprise. Sulu is running the ship and seems to need the player's help more often than not. You DO NOT get to pilot the starship! Instead, you are manning an awkward, clumsy fighter craft with horribly designed controls. Good luck.

I have a pet-peeve with flying games... most of them have solved this problem, but others like this Star Trek game, haven't... I like having the ship go up when I press the up button and down when I press down. I cannot stand the inverted method of flying. Most game designers have understood that there are people like me out there and have created different configurations to fix this. Not Star Trek.

I could rant about this game forever... bad graphics, bad music, pointless scenarios, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I will wrap up this review by saying how disappointed I am. This could have been a fantastic game if one person had a little bit of an imagination. This is a flying game, plain and simple... it's just got a Star Trek theme. Don't be fooled like me.

Rent first!