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Star Trek Game To Launch Alongside New Movie

Posted by Soulskill on from the set-phasers-to-not-terrible-please dept.

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.

18 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Possibly amazing... probably not... by routerl · · Score: 2

    If this game is anything but a pretty remake of Netrek, this will have been a huge missed opportunity.

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  2. They Just Don't Get It... by hal2814 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?!

    1. Re:They Just Don't Get It... by Akido37 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Star Trek: A Final Unity was probably the best Star Trek game ever released.

      Minimal combat, which could be avoided based on your actions, and many missions and away teams, just like on the show.

      I hope the new Star Trek Online does it justice.

    2. Re:They Just Don't Get It... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A Final Unity and the 25th Anniversary game were both good. You had a bit of space combat (with a horrible interface) in the 25th Anniversary game, but mostly it was away teams and exploring. I also quite enjoyed Birth of the Federation, which was a Civilisation-style game. Quite a bit of space combat there, but only if you chose to play that way. Playing as the Federation or Ferengi it was discouraged, but if you played as the Romulans or Klingons it was encouraged.

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    3. Re:They Just Don't Get It... by Shakrai · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Playing as the Federation or Ferengi it was discouraged

      Actually it was kind of encouraged as the Federation. You got small morale boosts for winning space battles but took a huge morale hit if you tried to land troops and conquer planets to actually win the war. As a result you'd usually wind up in an endless war where'd you destroy their ships as soon as they built them but couldn't actually end the war without alienating the civilian population. Remind you of the present day United States where the public will cheer on air campaigns with minimal American loss of life but go apeshit we land ground forces and start suffering a larger number of casualties?

      To add more irony to the mix, the game actually encouraged genocide when playing as the Federation. You'd take less of a morale hit by engaging in orbital bombardments until everybody was dead than you would by invading and conquering the place. About the only time you could get away with ground invasions as the Federation was when you liberated conquered races from the other major powers. Those were actually kind of fun because you'd get a HUGE morale boost and liberated race would usually want to join the Federation within a turn or two.

      The Romulans were their own PITA with morale too. Believe it or not the Romulan population was almost as picky as the Federation was, just in different ways. The Cardassians could almost get away with ignoring morale. Bad morale == good excuse to build forced labor camps! I never played as the Klingon's or Ferengi. Keep meaning to load that game back up one day but it doesn't seem to like my new computer for some reason -- which is strange because I've had it working on XP before without issue.

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    4. Re:They Just Don't Get It... by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Informative

      Star Trek: A Final Unity was probably the best Star Trek game ever released. Minimal combat, which could be avoided based on your actions, and many missions and away teams, just like on the show. I hope the new Star Trek Online does it justice.

      Final Unity also had a pretty cool combat interface if you were inclined to try and manage it all yourself instead of letting Worf do it for you. It was fairly overwhelming but actually seemed representative of what you'd expect space combat in the TNG universe to look like. There were a few battles that you couldn't avoid in the storyline as I recall -- one or two with the Romulans (one of which was painfully easy to win because it was with a "modified" warbird that sacrificed weaponry for speed) and one with the super aliens. That one was pretty hard to win and you usually wind up retreating or losing. I did beat it a few times, which lead to a lot of chest thumping on my part ;)

      I need to dig that game back out some day and go through it again. I wonder if it will run in Dosbox?

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    5. Re:They Just Don't Get It... by Akido37 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I wonder if it will run in Dosbox?

      It does. I've played it on my Mac using Boxer.

  3. Badly exploited franchise by Shrike82 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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  4. DAC... by hansamurai · · Score: 2, Informative

    But does it have Gratuitous Space Battles?

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    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  5. Tribbles by belloc1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I heard the second level is called "The Trouble With Tribbles"

  6. Re:MMOG? by Jeez01 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Crytpic announced they are working on Star trek MMO, originally it was being developed by Perpetual which went bankrupt. They released some screen shots couple months ago.

  7. Screenshot: by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

    YOU MUST DESTROY 16 KINGONS IN 30 STARDATES WITH 4 STARBASES
                   +++
                             STARDATE  2100
        *                    CONDITION GREEN
             >!<<*>          QUADRANT  2,2
              *              SECTOR    5,4
                       *     ENERGY    3000
                             SHIELDS   0
    *                       PHOTON TORPEDOES 10
    COMMAND

    (Modified due to lameness filter. Really? Too many "Junk Characters" for a "Code" post?)

  8. Top-down? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    1. Re:Top-down? by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, if Khan was a genius and his tactical planning was limited to two dimensions, who are the game designers to try to work in 3?

  9. Re:wishing for another Armada by jandrese · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

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    I read the internet for the articles.
  10. Re:Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest ... what? by eln · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  11. Simultaneous release = bad game by tgibbs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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

  12. Re:MMOG? by acohen1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cryptic is working on it. It will be based on the same engine as Champions Online, which today has an official release date for 7/14 which is a very good sign for progress on the Star Trek MMO to really get up to speed.