"The Devil in the Lite"

Being on a sort of a Star Trek kick, I decided to pick up something new for my DS in the same series. Having been severely offended and disgusted at that thing called Star Fox: Command, I was also hankering for some good space combat. I can't say I was totally pleased with my decision here as well, as I found a game that could go from fun to frustrating withing the same playing time.

I should have suspected a hint of messiness when I opened the factory sealed case and found the game card upside-down and on the opposite side of where is should be (the packaging was screwy). I pressed on, however, and entered the Federation campaign, which you must play first before being able to access a Klingon campaign. Both scenarios take place during Captain Kirk's era and feature a cool narrative of a spanking new Captain behind the helm, along with a pair of Klingon brothers trying to make a name for themselves while averting civil war. What's great about both narratives is that the Romulans play a huge part across both campaigns. Old enemy races such as the Orions and Gorn also make appearances, making the scenario for the game feel very TOS. However, I don't ever remember there being yellow phaser fire from Federation ships in Kirk's era, so purists may find some fault with minor additions as usual.

The first thing that grabbed my attention was definitely the visuals. If you've played Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith for the Game Boy Advance, then you have an idea of the cartoon nature of what's presented for the characters; if not, think: syndicated "cartoonish." It's not horribly bad (except when some exaggeration in emotion is given), but does detract a bit since the rest of the game doesn't have a cartoon presentation. The graphics for the ships take on a low-rez Starfleet Academy (PC) look (no details, and not so much as a letter on the hull), and the planets/moons, well, look piss poor. If you get close to one you will ram into it, as there is no atmosphere for the planets, and the heavenly bodies end up looking like floating disco balls with their poor pixilation. Not to mention the background stars that look painted on. The overall presentation takes on an almost late SNES/early Playstation look. The menus, however, look..."Federation" enough (not blatant LCARS), and are a great use within the game.

In a move that has to be repeated by other developers, we are allowed to navigate the well designed menus and control the game with the face/shoulder buttons, the stylus, or *both* ways (take that Starfox). You can fly your given ship by dragging the stylus left or right on the bottom screen, and you can easily access menus and procedures that allow you to: change alert level, hail other ships and space stations, warp, boost speed, assign emergency power to shields, and power up and fire phasers and photon torpedoes. The only problem here is that you need to be on the engine's menu screen if you want to be able to fly around with the stylus only. It works really well, though, and makes maneuvering a breeze. For manual, hands-on control, it is equally smooth. Aside from having to sometimes use two buttons at a time, like when you warp, or cloak (you are required to hold the R button and press X or Y respectively) the controls make for easy handling no matter the choice selected. The great control makes the game move very fluidly and offers up the rest of the game as to where more care should have been given.

Many people when reading the title may mistake this for a sort of pocket Bridge Commander (one wishes), or tactical in the way of a console turn based strategy game--but it's strictly action oriented as you cannot even target systems or subsystems of enemy ships. You basically target-lock on an enemy ship and dogfight (read: play chicken) while trying to wear down an opponent's circular shield surrounding each ship while and using what both races of the campaigns offer within their technology: Starfleet has recharging shields and the Klingons have their cloaking devices with both races having their respective ship designs that are assigned to you (you get new ships every so often, but you can only use the one allowed for a certain mission). Set to extremely repetitive musical loops (I recognize some music from Star Trek: Encounters) and backgrounds (you will be familiar with orange disco balls), you have 15 missions for the Starfleet campaign and 16 for the Klingon campaign, and both have their share of problems.

To many, the missions presented will be hard, and to be fair they are at first. Diplomacy can be a choice to prevent a more difficult battle, but the game usually asks for a more combative solution to be made, and in doing so showcases the flawed system in place. In the game, you are allowed to "upgrade" your ship in various ways by receiving points after a mission. The better your performance, the better the rewards of points will be. You can then spend the points strengthening your phaser and photon torpedoes, quickening your charge rate for the weapons, or boost your ships overall speed--you get the picture. There are many things to upgrade and can also include gaining new maneuvers such as a quick turn. Well, these "upgrades" don't feel as though they enhance your capabilities in a very profound way. In fact, when you "upgrade" at first it feels as though you are doing so just to get by. This can lead one to restart the game over just to allocate points better so that you can have a better fighting chance. Not only that, but because of the lack of normalcy given to you at the start, the missions themselves prove taxing and tedious.

Battling definitely proves difficult when you first start out. The recharge rate for phasers after use, for instance, still takes too long even after you upgrade, and you are severely left defenseless unless you're in the Klingon campaign where cloaking and de-cloaking can aid a bit in this situation; however, you are then left placing too much emphasis on cloaking. Torpedo fire can also miss, even if you've maxed out on accuracy for them and fire at a close proximity to an enemy ship. You can also be left in an instance where you also rely too much on powered-up weapons to get the job done, which can also drain your ship's energy quickly.

Your shields are allowed a small boost when you warp from one battle to the next, but that may not help if an ally you have to protect bites it. The game does offer some branching paths, as in the diplomacy I mentioned, but unfortunately not in the way of an allies death. And one branching path in particular leads to a horrible game-ending bug where you are left stranded in space and must restart the mission over. What's also bad is that the AI of your allies can be frustrating to deal with. Most notably, in the Klingon campaign your AI allies can cloak right in front of an enemy, and since shields go down when cloaked it allows for their health to be seriously taken away if you have to protect them (keep them alive). In this weakened state it becomes almost unbearable at times to defeat the many ships you are asked to and still keep an ally alive, but when accomplished there is a great sense of satisfaction at beating the developers' insanity, lack of polish, and lack of empathy for a gamer's sanity. Checkpoints would have aided immensely in making missions more tolerable than trying to emulate (badly) gameplay of the past just to seem hard(core). Fun and hard in the mold of originals Castlevania/Contra this game is not.

I will commend the devs, though, for making the ship combat feel believable. The ships you are assigned are lumbering beasts and behave like so; they're not fighter pilot fast (unless you account for the quick turn that you don't have to acquire), so battles do take place at a comfortable rate. Perhaps the battles do move a little slow, but comfortable given the content. In battle, also, nice little effects like legitimate phaser fire and torpedo sounds, ship parts being shot off and sparks and holes in the hulls add to the conflicts, but the flames seeping from wounded vessels (yes, there is fire) and explosions leave a lot to be imagined, as the flames given tend to resemble orange smoke and the explosions simply look as if your ship was a toy model that broke apart. And I do think it was a nice touch to only have the ships fly without the need for true 3-D movement, as I can only imagine the frustration that would bring. If you get near an enemy ship, your ship simply flies above it without the need to manually do so, and you can still attack. Oh, but not for space hazards. There can be quirky times when you're target locked onto an enemy and then ram into an asteroid or other object you cannot see in-front of your ship because the camera is locked on an enemy, and ramming into objects can leave your ship severely crippled in a matter of seconds.

As for the skirmish, or rather multiplayer? It's the standard. While I haven't had one-one-one battles (no one I know has this game--and there's no WiFi), the battling with the game's selection of ships is more tolerable than in the single-player mode, especially when you can get your hands on a ship you can't helm there unless you use codes. Unfortunately, there is only a paltry selection of areas to battle in.

Much like Star Trek: Encounters, there is some fun buried within this mediocre offering. Unfortunately I would say it comes only after your ship, and patience, is fully "upgraded" allowing for a more tolerable go through of battles. It's amazing after almost a decade containing some great space combat games such as the Colony Wars series (in Vengeance you could target systems like engines), the Rogue Squadron series, and others I'm forgetting, that this game neither adds to, nor receives from the genre. This game just...exists as another space combat game with a Star Trek brand.

I find it very difficult to recommend this game to non Star Trek fans. To those who are fans, I would still recommend caution even at the current asking price. Bethesda has not fully given respect to the Star Trek brand as of yet, and officially offering up what they're asking for this game wouldn't be helping the cause. Draw the line...heyah!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/07, Updated 11/05/07

Game Release: Star Trek: Tactical Assault (US, 10/26/06)