Star Trek D-A-C Review
Played on:
Xbox 360
Sometimes it's confusing seeing how movie companies make game tie-ins. Star Trek is clearly the most successful movie of the summer so far, yet its tie-in game is an Xbox Live title that hardly picks up anything from the movie. Star Trek D-A-C is an arcadey shooter played from a top-down 2D perspective where you'll control one of three ships each from either the Romulans or the Federation in a battle across several maps. Sound familiar? Yes, it's been done before on Xbox Live, but let's see if this one is any better or different.
The first thing you'll notice about D-A-C is that this could have been released pretty much any time without any relation to any new or previous movie. There are no characters, there's no story, and much like the Battlestar Galactica game that was released a couple years back, D-A-C seems to rely almost entirely on iconic ship designs to try and generate and keep your interest. But what the developers didn't seem to realize is that while science fiction used to be about the crazy-looking ships, weird aliens, and ridiculous, nerdy technical designs, the genre has evolved. The irony is that it was shows like Battlestar and yes, a recently released sci-fi reboot movie called Star Trek that are remaking the genre in an entirely new image that focuses on the characters more than the nerd fantasies.
That being said, jumping into this game is mildly amusing, at least at first. As either side you can control the large and lumbering Flagship, a quick and nimble Fighter, or a powerful Bomber. All three have the same basic left-stick control scheme but different firing mechanisms. The Fighter puts directional shots on the right stick in the vein of Geometry Wars, Flagships have an actual reticle on screen that you'll use to aim precise proton torpedo shots, and Bombers don't really aim much but leave powerful bombs in their wake. All three are fairly balanced in a rock-paper-scissors style, and each side has the same three ship types. The ships are identical in performance on each side, too, so the only thing really separating them are the looks.
Throughout each map you'll find a number of powerups that you can pick up and then use to create a fake clone of yourself, toss on an additional shield, fire out a powerful special shot from the front of your ship, cloak your ship until you fire, and more. You'll also find semi-permanent weapon upgrades that, if you collect enough of them, give your standard weapon some extra punch. If you die with upgrades, you'll have to quickly press the A button to eject before your ship explodes so that you'll have a chance keep some of your weapon upgrades when you respawn.
There are a few modes to play on - Team Deathmatch has you battling to rack up kills, Assault has each side timed in trying to capture four points, and Conquest has you trying to assault the enemy's base (and defend your own) after lowering their defenses by capturing points around the map. Battles can include up to six players on each side, and overall the game is fairly fun in Conquest mode when you've got an even fight and some decent teamwork going on. Playing alone against the AI is rather annoying because the AI has extremely good aim, so the only way to win is to basically exploit their bad tactics. For that reason, the game's most definitely best played online against real people.
But even the multiplayer game's fun is rather limited, and most of that is in the weapon upgrades being the only way to make your ship better over time - and those upgrades are constantly being lost. There's no way to unlock new ships or weapons in a given game, and there are no persistent rewards for doing better over the course of your time playing D-A-C. Without features like this, the game is merely a quick distraction on a lazy afternoon and it only really works in the wake of Star Trek movie hype. But even then, it just doesn't really connect with the movie except by the name and the look of a couple of the ships.
And right now, I'm making a call: stop making these damned 2D top-down arcade games based on popular science fiction properties. This is the third one released on Xbox Live Arcade, and none of them have even half the charm of similar games like the Geometry Wars series. Yes, D-A-C can be fun when everything aligns up just right, but you'll get into way too many frustrating or lop-sided games to make it worth it. It fares only slightly better than similar games like Battlestar or Wing Commander Arena that was released a while back, so at this point, the next movie or show that has spaceships should at least try spawning an adventure game or something. Hey, why not? - Star Trek: 25th Anniversary was a fantastic game!
