Fans of the Star Trek: The Original Series and the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot of the series who have dreamed of taking on the role of Kirk or Spock will get their chance in the upcoming, co-op focused third person shooter developed by Digital Extremes.
The Star Trek game bridges the gap between the original Star Trek film and its sequel, which is currently in post-production. Film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Qunito, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Zoe Saldana will reprise their roles as voice actors for their characters. Gamers will face off against the Gorn, an alien race that William Shatner and Original Series fans are sure to be familiar with.
Related: Star Trek: Original Series Villains Showing Up In Star Trek 2?
Due to limited development cycles, movie tie-in games have a notorious history of disappointing. Brian Miller, Senior Vice President and Producer of Paramount Pictures, asserts that the Star Trek game will not fall into this trap. In an interview with IGN, Miller assured the site that "We had a conversation about why movie games don't work. Most of them aren't very good. And we tried to figure out why that was. Because even though people loved the movies, and you'd think they'd want to play those games because of the characters, most movie tie-ins don't work."
Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that "one of the biggest reasons was that you don't give those types of games enough time. By the time you start filming a movie to the time you get ready to have it in theatres, you're lucky to have 12 months for a developer to really work on a game. That's not enough time to do it right. So by the time Star Trek comes out, we'll have been working on the game for about 3 years."
Given the emphasis on cooperative play, another large concern was partner AI. Miller states that the team was very conscious that bad AI could "ruin the entire experience of the game."
He adds, "Digital Extremes has had [AI] at the top of the list right from the beginning. It is a little bit different depending on who you play as. We have a lot of banter that we've recorded where it's Spock being frustrated with Kirk doing stuff. And Kirk being frustrated with Spock." So, how does the game look? Here are a few first impressions from gaming websites.
Kotaku
"Combat segments reminded me in many ways of the combat in Mass Effect 3. Spock and Kirk had to use cover to their advantage, apply both skills and aim, and at one point Spock even picked up a temporary heavy weapon from the Gorn ship and used it against them."
Cooptimus
"Players will clearly have different experiences depending upon which character they use to play the game. I'm sure many fans will want to play through the story mode at least twice so that they can see everything."
Capsule Computers
During most of the demo that I saw, the main focus was on combat. Unfortunately, it looks like a fairly standard 3rd person shooter. However, you do get to use Spock's famous Vulcan Neck pinch to knock out enemies, which is pretty rad. Mind melding was also featured. Although I was a little disappointed in the action sequences, it is still quite exciting to get to play co-op as one of the most famous duos ever.
Star Trek will be available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC when it debuts early 2013.
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