Star Trek: Shattered Universe

"How Do You Say PWN In Klingon?"

Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of crappy games made from movies and TV. To explore strange new media markets. To seek out new wealth and new sources of capital. To boldly blow the way no other games have blown before.

Personally I like Star Trek. No, I don't dress up like a Starfleet Officer, nor can I say All Your Bases Belong To Us in Klingon, but I am a fan of the series. It was created in a time of very much racial tension and stared a black woman in a powerful position as well as a Japanese American and a Russian. It illustrates a perfect world were disease, famine, and war no longer exist and where the human race has come together for a greater goal, to explore our universe to learn more about what is around us, while finding out our true character. Star Trek: Shattered Universe follows along these lines and follows the exploits of two former officers now captains, Pablov Chekov of the USS Enterprise and Sulu, the Captain of the USS Excelsior. The story is based around an original idea. The Enterprise and another ship are trapped in some sort of space storm and Sulu comes to the rescue, however something happens and all three ships are transferred to an alternate universe. You learn very early that all is not as it seems, as the USS Enterprise turns into the ISS Enterprise and now Chekov is your enemy and the Federation is an evil empire that seeks only power. Your role comes as an unnamed member of the Excelsior, upon entering the new dimension your ship changes as well. The shuttle craft are changed to fighters and you get to fly them. Time to own some Federation scum!

GAMEPLAY

Hull Break, Evacuate. Ok, I'm starting off a bit too dorky here so let's drop it down a notch. The game play of this game is terrible. There is just no other way to say it. It has nothing to do with the controls, in fact the controls are very tight. Moving your ship around is easy to do and aiming is also a cinch. The problem isn't the ships at all really. There are several different kinds of ships and each have their pros and cons. Some have extremely strong weapons, while others can recharge their shields very quickly. Also as you go the ships get upgraded with strong phasers and photon torpedos as well as upgrades to shields and hull strength. The problem lies with the very missions themselves. Now I love nothing more than blowing apart a bunch of fighters, and heck removing a few big ships from the map sounds great, but what if you had to do that and basically nothing else. All the levels are extremely drawn out and repetitive. On several of them you have to fly your little ship to up to 7 or 8 different Nav Points and destroy asteroids to get resources for the capital ship. However between each Nav point a groupd of 5 to 7 fighters pop out and you have to destroy them before moving on to your mundane task of collection services. Also, so levels are insanely hard and because of the game's repetitive nature you'll really won't feel the need to continue. In a very early mission you must defend the Excelsior from groups of fighters while trying to destroy 4……yes 4 ships of the same size. And all those ships do major damage to you. Also you can be doing an extremely hard set of tasks…like the one I mentioned before and just when you think it's over in warps another capital ship and fighters and you get to fend them off while you and your capital ship are both extremely damaged. This leads to lots and lots of frustration and anger.

GRAPHICS

Passable….simple as that. They do the job but could have been so much better. Several areas of the game you'll notice that the starts and space around you is pixilated and looks like crap. However, the character's looks absolutely great. They can easily pass off as the real deal. Also the capital ships are very details and well made. You can really tell the difference in technology of different factions as some ships look old while others look brand spanking new.

SOUND

This is the only category where I can honestly say the game excels. The voice acting is very well done and the people who play Sulu and Chekov lend their voices for their characters. Because of this you get a greater sense of for lack of a better word, realism. They can really give you the feeling that you are looking at and hearing George Takai (Sulu) and other characters.

OVERALL

This game will make a decent addition to a Trekie's library, but may not be suitable for everyone. The difficulty goes through the roof early and will turn younger and less experienced gamers away. If you really need spaceship combat I'd say look for an old Wing Commander game, because this is not for you. Play Onand Prosper!

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/04