I actually like this game. Im not one of those trolls that make up a fake review or some account made by some random developer or publisher. I actually give this game a 7.5 but decided to do it a 7 on Metacritic because even though I think it is a good game, it isnt worth the $60 asking price, its more like $20-30 if you wanna buy it. That is because the campaign is relatively short (TookI actually like this game. Im not one of those trolls that make up a fake review or some account made by some random developer or publisher. I actually give this game a 7.5 but decided to do it a 7 on Metacritic because even though I think it is a good game, it isnt worth the $60 asking price, its more like $20-30 if you wanna buy it. That is because the campaign is relatively short (Took me about 8 hours). I suppose if you're a hardcore trekie and you enjoy the new movie series then $60 will be a fair price to you, but if you are just a casual fan of Star Trek or 3rd person shooters I would wait for a price drop.
First of all, most of the pro reviewers exaggerated the issues with the game. Yes, there are some clipping issues and bugs, but they are overblown. None of the bugs affect your ability to play the game. So I do mark down some for it but not much since its more of a polishing issue than something that affects the gameplay. There is a notable exception to this though, I did encounter a bug that inverted the directions of my left analog stick that seemed to be triggered by getting rammed by one of the big Gorn creatures, and it lasts a few seconds. I am unsure if this is a bug or perhaps intentional design to make the impact of getting hit seem more significant, since this bug only happens in these very specific instances, and other heavy impacts like explosions do not cause it. Its not a crippling bug when looking at the game as a whole because you only fight big Gorn bosses a few times in the game, they are not a regular enemy.
One of the complaint I hear about a lot is the AI is bad. This isnt true at all. My AI partner has been pretty helpful in firefights and has saved my hide numerous times. As far as the AI teleporting, this only happened to me one time, which was on the last mission. The last mission seemed to be more buggy than the rest of them in general so I hope they patch it quick.
The terrible animations only apply to cutscenes and such, the actual in game animation for combat/movement sequences is actually very good. The cutscene animations being bad particularly happens when characters are stationary and mostly affect Kirk and Spock (who should be the most animated characters honestly) because most of the other characters are animated well with a few exceptions.
The graphics are pretty good. There are some instances of low res textures, but the engine is technically sound with great draw distance, no pop in or screen tearing, a consistent framerate with no slowdowns, and some pretty visual effects such as in the opening mission with the bright sun in the background and nice reflection effects.
The sound design is very well done, the sound effects sound like they they do from the series, the actual actors lend a hand for the voiceovers and do a good job in portraying their characters, and the game has a mix of music from the movies as well as some original scores, and the score is very good.
The gameplay is 3rd person like Gears of War, but its not a bro-op shooter where you just shoot and shoot some more with some turret sequences to spice it up. This game has a LOT of variety in the gameplay from platforming, puzzle solving, the tricorder (Which can also help in combat scenarios), exploration, stealth, drop sequences like the 2009 movie, and even a segment with commanding the enterprise, AND NO TURRET BITS!
It is done pretty well overall with all of these bits, if I did have to pick a weak point with these extra bits it would be the platforming because the controls are a little wonky with this. It wasn't an insurmountable obstacle but a lot of my non combat deaths were from trying to manage some of the platforming sequences.
The game also has something called Commendations, which you may see come up once-twice per mission, basically rewarding you for playing a specific way. Fortunately this game doesnt fall into a trap of FORCING you to play a specific way or have to retry like a lot of games do. For instance, if you dont want to use your phaser on stun, explore different routes, or use stealth to avoid detection, you dont have to and the game wont make you restart a segment if you fail to do this. These commendations are setup to have the player play a little more intelligently, like you are a Starfleet Officer as opposed to a gun toting grunt. They are optional but they do help you to unlock additional experience for unlocking things.
You can use experience to unlock upgrades to your tricorder and phaser. It would have been nice to utilize it to upgrade the other weapons as well, but I can see why they chose the phaser only since you generally always have it.
The story is very solid and is well presented like in the movies. And the combat is good, shooting and cover mechanics work well and you snap to cover and get off it easily. And the phaser and tricorder can be very useful in combat, as you can use the stun setting to allow melee kills on enemies.
I do recommend this… Expand
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