Star Trek Game To Launch Alongside New Movie

Paramount announced yesterday that Star Trek D-A-C will be available for download for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC when the movie is released on May 8th. The acronym in the title stands for different types of gameplay: Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest. It's an arcade-style game, with a solo mode as well as multiplayer modes that handle up to 12 players. According to Joystiq, "It's a top-down 3D space shooter that doesn't require a lot of hardcore gameplay experience to jump into, but it features a large amount of strategic gameplay that'll please hardcore gamers." Several screenshots have been released.

They Just Don't Get It...

[hal2814]

Maybe this movie will deviate from the norm but very rarely does Star Trek devote a ton of time to space battles. Why the hell are so many Star Trek games based on space battle? This would sorta make sense for a BSG game but for Star Trek, space exploration and exploring strange new worlds make up the bulk of the plot lines. I think that's why those who played 25th Anniversary love it so much. A Star Trek game actually felt like a game version of the show instead of some space sim with Star Trek intellectual property pasted on top of it. Can we please get another real Star Trek game?!

Badly exploited franchise

[Shrike82]

I always felt disappointed with the majority of Star Trek games. Sure there were some half decent first person shooters, and a few point-and-click adventures back in the day that were fun and engrossing. Then I think of Birth of the Federation, which wasn't awful, but as 4X space games go it was no Master of Orion 2. Ditto two fly-around-a-solar-system shooters that were completely underwhelming (the names escape me).

I'm sure loads of people would disagree, but I always thought Star Trek games had the potential to be awesome, but were consistently mediocre.

Top-down?

[TheRaven64]

Seriously? They're releasing a top-down space combat game? Is it 1990 again and nobody told me? If you're going to create a strategic space combat game, why not license the engine from a game that did it well (e.g. Homeworld) and use that.

Re:wishing for another Armada

[jandrese]

The only thing I didn't like about Armada was that both games were shoved out the door maybe 90% done and never looked at again by the developer. There was a lot of potential there, but the unit balance was off and it crashed to the desktop a bit too often for me.

Re:Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest ... what?

[eln]

This game is based on the prequel movie. You're mixing up the games based on TOS and TNG.

The game based on TOS has "Start Fist-Fight" and "Seduce Alien Woman" buttons, while the one based on TNG has "Talk Endlessly (aka Diplomacy)" and "Flirt with Troi" buttons.

Simultaneous release = bad game

[tgibbs]

Generally when games release simultaneously with movies, they tend to be disappointing, because the rigid release date forces the game to come out whether it's really finshed or not