E3 2011: Star Trek (2012) First Impressions Preview

Director J.J. Abrams was able to reboot a respectable franchise with a fresh cast and a new story with his Star Trek movie in 2009. It was a smart move to use familiar characters, and by branching the story off on a new timeline, he has the freedom to do what he wants with the new cast. Another movie is planned for next year, and Star Trek will have a video game component, but it will be vastly different from Star Trek: D.A.C., which was released a couple of years ago.

Star Trek (2012) is a cooperative third-person shooter where you can play as either Spock or Kirk. The trailer that was shown at Sony's E3 press conference included snippets of pre-alpha gameplay footage where we saw Spock and Kirk in several sticky situations, firing lasers aboard spaceships and launching explosive beams to stay out of harm's way. At one point we saw Kirk in a spacesuit, moving from one ship to another, and then the game switched to Spock, who was out exploring a very green and lush planet. It was difficult to follow what was going on, but we know there will be plenty of action.

To emphasize the cooperative play, there were a few clips that had Spock and Kirk working closely together as a team and even helping each other walk. We were told that there will be PlayStation Move support, and while movie-based games are notorious for being not-so-great, we'll keep an eye on this one to see how it plays out. One highlight is that it looks like Michael Giacchino's memorable brass-led score will be included. The game is set to be released in 2012 along with the movie.