by Stephen DeckAlso available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
Review written by Stephen Deck; originally published 09/18/2018 on Teacher by Day, Gamer by Night
I have a lot of feelings about the Kelvin timeline in Star Trek. I’ve been watching Star Trek literally my entire life. I don’t like prequels, and I don’t like alternate timelines; Jar Jar Abrams’ reboot film is both, and this game takes place shortly after that movie. So how does this 2013 Star Trek game stack up for a long-time Star Trek fan and a Prime timeline elitist? Well…it’s not terrible.
Have you played Gears of War? Imagine that with the steroids and chainsaws removed and replaced with space ships and Vulcans. Throw in a pinch of unpolished game mechanics, and that’s basically Star Trek. It’s a third-person cover-based shooter geared towards co-operative multiplayer in the same fashion as Resident Evil 5 – two protagonists one of which is AI-controlled if playing solo. Unlike Shiva in Resident Evil 5, however, Spock is not helplessly stupid and a bigger threat to you than the final boss. Also unlike Resident Evil 5, Star Trek is actually rather fun to play.
Unfortunately, being a licensed movie tie-in game, Star Trek is just pretty good. It’s not great. It’s not memorable. It’s not innovative. It’s fun, but it’s little more than a decent way to pass time. It doesn’t offer an experience of any true depth. I only played solo, so it may well be a fantastic co-op experience, but from my time with the game, it was good, but not amazing. It looks nice. It plays decently although the cover mechanics are annoying and not nearly as smoothly polished as Gears of War or Mass Effect. If you’re a fan of the Abrams movie, then you’ll probably really like it. If you’re a fan of real Star Trek, you’ll probably find the game decent but annoying.
Star Trek is an enjoyable game, but it’s an extremely okay game. It’s a run of the mill cover-based third-person shooter that doesn’t really do much wrong, but it also doesn’t really do much right. It’s an enjoyable enough romp for Star Trek fans, but for folks who aren’t fans of the franchise, there really isn’t a lot to offer as there are much, much better cover-based third-person shooters. If you find it for less than $5, then it’s probably a worthwhile play, but otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.
