Star Trek: Shattered Universe Impressions

Star Trek: Shattered Universe was one of the many games on display at a recent event held by TDK Mediactive. The storyline is based on the "Mirror Mirror" episode from the original Star Trek series, which focuses on an alternate universe where the Federation is actually a ruthless empire as opposed to a peacekeeping, exploratory organization like the Federation of the regular timeline. You'll take on the role of a crewmember on board the Excelsior, captained by well-known Enterprise helmsman Sulu. When the Excelsior breaches into the Mirror Mirror universe, the crew starts to look for a way home, but before they get there, they'll have to fight off the Federation and its fleet, including the Enterprise. Interestingly, you'll also team up with the Klingons and the Romulans, which will give you an opportunity to pilot fighters from those respective factions--such as the Klingon Bird of Prey--in addition to the ones offered by the Federation.

Shattered Universe's gameplay is pretty straightforward. Most of the time, you'll simply be dogfighting with enemy Federation fighters, but at certain points, you'll have to go toe-to-toe with Federation capital ships. Obviously, if you try to take one of these ships head-on, you'll be relentlessly bombarded with its photon torpedoes and phasers, so you have to use a little maneuvering in order to stay out of the line of fire. In one such mission, you have to constantly bombard the Enterprise so that it won't engage a small group of Klingon ships you've been ordered to escort. It's worth noting that the combat isn't as in-depth as a game like Starfleet Command, in which damage can be inflicted on individual ship systems, but it's still quite satisfying to launch a barrage of torpedoes and phasers into the belly of the Enterprise or any one of the other ships in the game.

The game tries to convey a sense of epic battles, and at this point it seems the development team is on the right track. The feeling of charging toward a Federation capital ship while avoiding its fire as well as fire from enemy fighters is well done, and all of the ships look like accurate representations of those featured in the movies, TV shows, and other sources of Star Trek material. In addition, George Takei and Walter Koenig will be providing their voices for the game to give it an added Star Trek feel.

Star Trek: Shattered Universe is scheduled for release on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox this November.