Digital Extremes – an extremely amazing development studio. She participated in the creation of many hit and even legendary games like Unreal, Unreal Tournament or the first two parts BioShock. But at the same time, the Canadians played the role of assistants there, brought in to port the game to some platform or to develop multiplayer. But as for your own projects, here you have Digital Extremes Rarely does something really strong come out. Dark Sector, Pariah, WarPath – all these action games, at best, deserved the ancient journalistic stamp of “strong average”.
Last year, it seemed like there was a long-awaited breakthrough: the dark mafia action movie The Darkness 2 from Digital Extremes got some good press. However, 2013 came, and the Canadians returned to their level: Warframe gets a maximum of “seven”, and the new Star Trek and it turned out to be a complete disappointment.
In the latter case, this is especially surprising, because the developers had almost everything they needed for success: an iconic universe, two extremely charismatic heroes, as well as the time-tested formula of previous Star Trek action games – it could be creatively refined taking into account all the latest trends and industry achievements. This is what the Canadians did, but the result was not very successful.
Star Legacy
Let’s remember what the warmly received Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force and Star Trek: Elite Force 2 were assembled from: a spectacular cinematic plot, excellent direction with an abundance of videos and dialogues; a lot of information on the famous universe; the opportunity to explore the legendary Federation spaceships, have affairs with beautiful girls, and rescue crew members in trouble; a combination of action and puzzles; the presence of partners who can be controlled in battle. So, almost all of this is in the new Star Trek There is. And even more.
The plot unfolds exactly between the events of the last two films JJ Abrams (J.J. Abrams), doesn’t seem to shock you with anything special: here again you need to fight a previously unknown race of some ugly scoundrels who have captured a Very Important Item (without it it is impossible to build a new Vulcan planet). But the famous screenwriter, BAFTA award winner Marianna Krawczyk (Marianne Krawczyk), generally knows her stuff.
What happens on the screen periodically differs little from what we see in films Abrams, where, according to some critics, the Star Trek universe received an injection of Transformers. That is, everything burns, explodes, falls on us, the videos replace each other every two minutes, and the player, in the midst of all this doomsday, is still forced to perform some meaningful actions.
The role-playing system has seven areas with three skills in each of them. But you can only activate one from each branch at a time.
The main characters, the legendary Kirk and Spock, constantly argue and tease each other. Then, as expected, a pretty girl appears in the script, and now she accidentally falls on our James Tiberius, and we smile knowingly in anticipation of a love affair..
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The gameplay also emphasizes effectiveness and variety. The action, like in previous Star Trek games, allows you to play with a partner – the only difference is that here Kirk and Spock are equal characters. However, the partner can be ordered to attack a specific enemy, move to the selected point. Although he himself provides fire support in battle. At the same time, unlike Star Trek: Elite Force 2, here your partner will never shoot you in the back..
There are acrobatics, when we jump and crawl on beams and broken structures, and puzzles. Asking your partner to take an energy battery and insert it into the right connector is far from the only and not the most interesting local “riddle”. So, in one situation you will have to fire at enemies and move between shelters in time (or create them yourself with accurate shots) in order to avoid exposure to solar radiation.
In another – using a special device, teleport your partner to special platforms, which can be located either on the ceiling or on the wall. And when Kirk and Spock simultaneously walk along the ceiling, move each other, shoot back, dodge the effects of a deadly laser and activate some antennas – the authors want to applaud, even though something similar has already happened in Dead Space.
In addition, situations periodically arise when we can be distracted in order to come to the aid of crew members of a particular ship who are in trouble: for this, for example, we need to activate the fire protection system. There is also an abundant library on the world of the game itself and Star Trek in general, and the opportunity to walk around the legendary Enterprise, look at its interiors, sit in a chair on the captain’s bridge, listen to Chekhov’s funny accent.
Experience is also given here for hacking. But if you activate a skill that allows you to hack instantly, without a mini-game, then you will not receive “exp”.
And new additives
The developers tried to modernize all this by training in Star Trek a bunch of ideas and elements from other people’s games that have been released recently. Firstly, a mandatory cooperative has appeared today. That is, your friend can play for Spock or Kirk. A partner needs to be revived if he gets shot, and to help climb somewhere, you need to give a hand. There are also QTEs: by quickly pressing the indicated button, players together can open some locked door.
Secondly, the action itself, as is fashionable now, combines a furious onslaught with stealth. From time to time, the game even poses additional tasks – supposedly complete a level without raising an alarm. There are also really interesting battles with “bosses”, reminiscent in their dynamics and complexity Gears of War.
Thirdly, Star Trek somewhat similar to Mass Effect. We are constantly hacking something (sometimes even right in battle) using various mini-games. During firefights, heroes sit behind cover. TO M.E They also include the ability to fire from the Enterprise’s onboard guns, shooting down enemy torpedoes and fighters, and some moral dilemmas. If you managed to save people trapped in a fire or completed a level without killing, but immobilizing infected earthlings and Vulcans, you will receive a handful of experience points. And then you can invest in “upgrading” Kirk and Spock: discover, for example, the ability to instantly hack the desired terminal, move without making a fuss, or explode weapons and grenades right in the hands of enemies.
Finally, here, as in any modern action game, there are spectacular situations when we just need, for example, to fly in outer space, maneuvering between all kinds of fragments. In general, remember the last Dead Space, and you will understand what we mean.
We need to be more careful, more careful!
It would seem that “life has become better, life has become more fun”. But this whole set of various gameplay elements, features, old and new ideas, unfortunately, does not add up to a truly successful project.
The problem is not copious amounts of copying other people’s ideas—everyone is doing that now. With proper game design, a game built on this foundation, which also has such a well-developed universe and such charismatic heroes, could become a real hit.
The problem is that all this has not been brought to fruition. Mini-games are constantly repetitive, half of the skills in the role-playing system are not needed, the controls are terrible, your partner often gets stuck in textures or runs into walls, there are not as many opportunities for interaction in co-op as we would like.
The plot, starting off vigorously, then begins to openly stall, the bickering between Kirk and Spock becomes more and more insipid, the pretty Vulcan woman for some reason is equated with a voice from headphones, instead of sparkling with a smile and hips next to the heroes. And most importantly, there are just one or two really interesting situations – they are practically limited to those examples that we wrote about above.
As a result, instead of a potential hit, we got another example of how good initiatives end, looking sweet on paper, when the game is made not with love, carefully licking every screw, but according to the principle “let’s just pull ideas from everywhere, invite a famous screenwriter and season it all with the faces of iconic characters!». Star Trek as if I stopped halfway to success. Perhaps only devoted fans of “Star Trek” will be able to get some pleasure from it. But everyone else will quickly overcome boredom.
Pros: interesting puzzles come across; a rich library with information on the universe and plot; some funny bickering between Kirk and Spock.
Cons: terrible management; weak cooperative; the further you go, the more monotony, repetition and melancholy there are in the game.