Star Trek DAC

DLC Review from AJ - Monday, 27 July 2009 @ 6:11pm

So.... I loved the Star Trek movie. I’m a Trekkie, I admit it. But I still loved the new movie. I don’t care about canon, and I don’t care that Uhura gets it on with Spock. Whatever. It was a good homage to the “Original Series” and a good popcorn flick at the very least. At best, it was a much needed revamp of a tired and, lets face it, daggy franchise. I’m kinda glad that the makers of DAC didn’t go down the same route of every other movie game out there. Movie tie-in games generally suck by trying to be all cinematic and replicate the movie experience and failing epically.

Star Trek DAC sucks, but because it goes too far the other way. It has NOTHING to do with the movie. Yes the teeny tiny models are based on the new version of Star Trek, but that is literally the end of any relationship with Star Trek at all. There is no story. There are no single player missions. There are no characters. There is no advancement. There is nothing beyond 6-10 little space ships blowing each other up over and over and over and over and over again.

Apparently these are Star Trek themed....

There are three modes to play in DAC...which I only just now worked out is where the game gets its name from, Deathmatch, Assault and Conquest. Conquest and Assault are your basic “capture and hold” mission and “raid the enemy base” mission. In each you have to capture and hold a certain area of the game map whilst the opposition takes it back from you. Defending a position adds a little bit of depth to a game that otherwise has none. Yes, the ships have powerups that are scattered randomly around the map and collectable after destroying the opposition... but they make relatively little difference to the game when the average life expectancy is around 20-30 seconds in the heat of combat.

It CAN get this exciting!

Ok there are a few choices of maps, but none of any particular tactical difference to any other. Just like choosing Romulans over the Federation makes no diference as both factions ships are essentially exactly the same. There are 3 ships to choose from, but really it is just a matter of whether you want to do a lot of damage and die quickly, or die slowly but be useless...great choices! In any case it won’t matter which you choose, because in most cases if you come up against more than 2 opposition without any backup you’re insta-killed anyway. What should be fast and furious shooter action becomes an exercise in hit and run attacking simply because your ships die so damned easily. Just as you’re getting into combat you die and respawn 30 seconds away. If you manage to survive for longer than 10 seconds, combat can be quite enjoyable, even if the targetting controls are a little daft (especially when piloting the Enterprise herself!).

bam..bam bam...explode...repeat

After all is said and done, Star Trek DAC is a below-par arcade shooter with minimal use of the Star Trek license which almost feels as though it was added as an afterthought...because the simplistic hit and run game play certainly doesn’t fit with the epic stature of the subject matter. Change the ship models and it could just as easily pass for Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Galaxy Quest or Howard the Duck.

Pros

Ummm....it's Star Trek?

Cons

Everything else.