Star Trek: Tactical Assault
Score: 72% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Developer: Quicksilver Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 (Multicard) Genre: Shooter
Graphics & Sound: Star Trek: Tactical Assault is a graphically pleasing game. It really shows off what the DS can do. Mind you, this isn't the level of detail that the PSP can show off, but the capabilities of the system definitely seem to be used quite fully in this title. Space stations and ships (be them Federation, Klingon or Romulan), are all easily recognizable. And though there might be some ships of a particular race that are hard to see differences of in-game (mostly due to the similar styled ships found in each race's fleets), the overhead schematic view found on the bottom screen makes up for the lack of detail in the 3D view of the top screen. The game's sound seems to be at about the same level as the graphics. Music-wise, the orchestral tunes sound like something from the Original Series or movies (the era this game takes place) and the voice of William Shatner comes through loud and clear.
Gameplay: Star Trek: Tactical Assault takes place during the original crew time period. You are a new captain given your first command over a Star Fleet vessel and after a couple of training missions, you are off to help protect the Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone. Missions typically follow a pattern of getting a hail from Star Fleet, warping to a destination, hailing the people you are there to help, hailing the antagonist and more times than not, duking it out with the enemy. Eventually, you will also be able to unlock a storyline following the Klingon Empire, but the overall feel of the game doesn't really change much and this same pattern persists in the other story. While in combat (after raising your alert status to red), you will be able to see six color-coded arcs around you and your enemy's ships. These arcs act as your shields. They start off green, but as they take damage, they turn to yellow and orange and red before they go out, thus leaving an opening in the ship's defenses. Also while in battle, you can scan your opponents and get a run-down on their weapons and various statuses to help you with your strategy. One of the more interesting aspects of this game is that each mission (theoretically) has multiple outcomes. For instance, just after your initial training, you receive a distress call from a cargo ship that is being attacked by Andorians. Just when you have the enemy at your mercy, you are called back to the station. What happens if you follow orders? What happens if you finish the job first? There are also branching dialogue trees that occur during or before most missions. There might be a way to avoid the fight altogether if you choose the right path, but then again, most of the missions will lead to an inevitable battle. Throughout the game, you will encounter three types of ships (either piloted by you or by your enemy). There are, of course, the Federation ships, but also the Klingon and Romulan Birds of Prey to deal with. Each fleet's ships are designed differently (not only visually, but functionally as well). Where Federation ships use phasers and photon torpedoes, Klingons share the torpedoes, but have disruptors instead of phasers (the difference being recharge time and destructive capabilities). And the Romulan vessels use disruptors and plasma bolts (very inaccurate, but very powerful beam weapon).
Difficulty: Star Trek: Tactical Assault's stories start off pretty easy. At first, you only have to deal with one or two enemy ships and slowly over the course of several missions, you will find yourself in bigger firefights with tougher enemies. But it seems the game's increase in difficulty is matched pretty well with your character's transfers to bigger and badder ships, so it tends to balance out fairly well. What does make the game hard to deal with, though, are not the actual missions and gameplay, but the controls and how heavily the game relies on you switching between the buttons and tapping the touch screen. But more on that in the next section.
Game Mechanics: One of Star Trek: Tactical Assault's biggest failings is its control scheme. The basics of flying your ship and firing your weapons are easy enough to pick up. Simply use the D-Pad for basic navigation and tap the A and B buttons for your primary and secondary weapons. Where things get tricky is when you need to do some of the more involved aspects of ship-to-ship combat. While some of the more frequently used aspects of flying your ship are one button press (or on the front screen menu), doing things like raising or lowering the ship's alert status involve both a button press and a tap on the touch screen. Or going to warp involves making sure you are on the Navigation tab in the lower screen, tapping Warp and then selecting your destination (or holding down both R and Y... which isn't much better because some of these key combos get to be a little hard to remember). When I first got into this game, and even after the all too brief tutorial, I felt like I had been ... well, thrown at the helm of an interstellar space ship. I was forced to keep in mind way too many screens, menus and button combinations and ultimately, this took away from the fun of space combat. Basically, though, this game tries to be a good game for Trekkies that will supposedly give them a lot of control over their ship and crew. But it gets overly complicated and just doesn't have an arcade enough feel to appeal to me.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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