"Human emotion is overrated" according to Mister Spock yet Star Trek is a video game whose non-stop action has some rather strong emotions to offer. The events take place between the 2009 and 2013 movies (by J.J. Abrams) as the playable characters Captain James T. Kirk and his inseparable Vulcan officer travel to the Helios-1 space station upon receiving a distress signal. They discover that a group of scientists did open a Rip in space in their effort to speed up the construction of their New Vulcan homeworld permitting the Gorn, a humanoid reptilian race first confronted in an early 1967 episode ("Arena"), to cross over into the Milky Way.
Departing from their former rubber appearance, the Gorn enhanced themselves genetically through adding the strongest traits of the consecutively conquered species, developing into several phenotypes distinct in size, skin color, and intelligence and about as varied as Mass Effect's Vorcha, Krogan, Turians, and Varren, which are correspondingly reflected in a hierarchy ranging from Rushers and Scouts, over Guardians and Warriors, to Lieutnants and the leading Gorn Commander. An overall brutal species that rather than being threatened in its own habitat strives for dominating the others, which in our galaxy results in infecting first Vulcans, then Humans who henceforth become aggressive and turn against the non-infected in a Zombie or Husk-like manner.
Both Gorns and infected define also the two different approaches used against hostiles throughout the game: all sorts of sci-fi firearms against the ones, and non-lethal stun-and-take out for the others, earning one a mission commendation as reward. However, the ambitious controls are complex while not too reliable, making it much more comfortable to simply shoot an enemy with any fire weapon lying around than trying but failing a tentative stealth attack. On the other hand, the game becomes the more enjoyable the more one really masters the controls, and while the easy difficulty level makes it possible to just run and gun most of the time, it is but worth to frequently stop and examine the environments with one's tricorder for scannable items and research data.
Of course Dr. “Bones” McCoy immediately starts to develop an antidote from some scanned husk samples, yet the tragic developments can't be stopped anymore: Spock's childhood friend T'Mar, daughter of New Vulcan leader Surok, who got the specifications of the Helios device crucial for the construction of the colony through Starfleet Commodore Daniels (in spite of its known risks) is abducted by the Gorn after them stealing the device, whereas her father is killed for giving no further insight. Meanwhile, the Gorn henchman is accidentally transferred to the USS Enterprise where as soon he starts infecting the human Crew.
Everywhere on the ship, starbase, and planets except during the cinematic cutscenes, knowledge on federation as well as enemy weapons, species, and devices can be obtained through scanning defeated corpses and dropped items. These scans provide valuable data (though every entry can be made only once) the more as gaining one a specified amount of XP which can be used to upgrade the loadout for both Kirk and Spock. The upgrade menu comprises Kill, Stun, and Energy for respectively Captain's Phaser and Vulcan Repeater, as well as Tricorder enhancements for both. For each upgrade type only one out of three options can be used at one time, thus inviting to try out their alternate combined effects. The add-ons of the vital tricorder whose different functions may remotely recall those of soldier classes, consist mainly in facilitating scans or hacks (Electronics: e.g., Research Helper), assisting allies (Support: e.g., Shield Booster), weakening enemies (Combat: e.g., Weak Spot Analyzer), and avoiding detection (Recon: e.g., Dematerializer).
Whereas the tricorder is a central gameplay element used also to hack enemy drones, mines, and turrets and track signals to resolve puzzles, regardless of the character chosen, selecting either the "brash, bold, clever" Kirk or the "tactical, precise, logical" Spock does have its impact for the approach in different situations--mind melding for Spock, orbital strike for Kirk--and is reflected also through the available plug-ins where Kirk's instant "Knockout Shot" becomes a "Memory Lapse Shot" for the softer Spock (Stun), "Automatic Fire" a "Kill Charger" (Kill), and "Fire Rate Booster" a "Propulsion System" (Energy).
After venturing the Enterprise into the Rip and with this, the Gorn's galaxy, Kirk and Spock take a shuttle together with Sulu and McCoy to a nearby planet the organic Gorn structures of which they infiltrate in order to rescue T'Mar. Instead they find the still arrogant Daniels who gets coldly killed while Kirk and Spock are caught by the Gorn Commander pitting them against his huge reptile Champion in a combat arena--an homage to the original Star Trek episode. They easily defeat the Gorn gladiators but the now furious Commander infects Spock to make him finish with Captain Kirk, just when Sulu and McCoy arrive in the shuttle with the antidote to save both--but still not T'Mar nor the Helios device which needs them to make another detour to first the Gorn-crawling Enterprise where the henchman holds Uhura hostage, then the Gorn Commander's own ship where T'Mar and the device are being held. The quite abrut ending finds them back on the purged USS Enterprise and the Milky Way with both T'Mar and Uhura in their arms, as expected on their way to new final frontiers, Nibiru, yet another "fascinating experience.”
A fascinating experience, however, it is not what one might retain from Star Trek the video game, rather its technical flaws albeit the many good but badly executed ideas largely borrowed from other franchises: Mass Effect, Aliens, Dead Space, even Uncharted, to name only a few. Alas, the species and weapons--Marauder, Ravager, Pillager--are far less appealing than in Mass Effect, the space less menacing than in Dead Space--and the platforming sections less well-founded than in Uncharted, which moreover suffer heavily from conflicting controls.
Still, the space views are wholly spectacular and the bluish interface looks novel, whereas close-ups during missions often reveal unpolished or generic structures, including the extended corridors of the USS Enterprise itself. Chad Seiter's soundtrack is fitting to the game's cinematic purpose if not really unforgettable, while the storyline by Marianne Krawzcyk (God of War, Shank) situates its not too linear plot well in the original Star Trek universe.
Voice acting is excellent as concerns the cutscenes and banters for using the same actors as the Abrams movies' Star Trek crew (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg) but far less so for all coop-related utterances where Captain Kirk might be yelling his thanks at Mister Spock in spite of being close by. If it is the familiar banters that save the party, this kind of communication shortfalls is one of the many negatives regarding the cooperative play which is the more deplorable as Star Trek has been designed as "asymmetrical" co-op action game to be played either single or with a friend, although mitigated in this latter case.
However, when relying on the CPU counterpart for assistance, the flaws in friendly AI soon become annoying due to the partner's mostly erratic behavior. So our AI buddy may just stand by when one needs urgent first aid, occasionally get lost or else remain running at one place, though in principle the possibility of assigning different co-op tasks to the partner (go here, unlock, attack) is one of the game's many good aspects, had it been better realized.
Unsurprisingly, the enemy AI doesn't fare much better than the friendly one, although some of the higher developed Gorns have the ability to use smoke grenades, camouflage, drones, or turrets, and the different bosses are no more than a quick show-off.
Visuals, cutscenes, banters with the well-likened Star Trek characters is what most renders tribute to the original series, together with some of the less common collectibles--above all audio logs and alien research data--plus the seven hidden “tribbles” making reference to yet another one of the early 1967 episodes, Trouble With Tribbles ("I'm done with pets").
It is this what makes Star Trek a video game to be enjoyed by fans of the series, rather than the well-meant complimentary tactics and the large palette of eclectic gameplay elements such as hacks, scans, stealth, leaps, teleports, even gravity pads, which often would have needed a better technical execution to be really gratifying.