If you’re not excited about Digital Extremes’ new licensed Star Trek game, you haven’t been paying attention. We broke this title last year, and were excited enough to give DE one of our Best of E3 Pleek Awards.
For those of you who haven’t seen much on the new title, Star Trek abandons the path-most-traveled. Digital Extremes has decided to take the J.J. Abrams universe as inspiration, but to avoid cramping the title by giving it a scenario separated from the 1st and 2nd films in the reboot universe, penned by regular Abrams collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (Star Trek, Casino Royale, etc) in conjunction with God of War scribe and BAFTA-winner Marianne Krawczyk.
The title uses a third-person camera view and cover-based game-play, and promises to focus very heavily on co-operative mechanics, from simple mechanics like player revives to area gates (‘Help me lift this, you big strong Vulcan you,’) to actual combat flanking and other tactical game-play choices.
At this year’s E3, Namco Bandai revealed a number of exciting details that’s keeping Star Trek at the top of my list. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban will be voicing the iconic Captain, First Officer, and Sawbones. Likenesses will be pulled from the rest of the cast, and it looks like visual design will be very much in keeping with the new Star Trek universe.
Also announced at this year’s conference were the main antagonists in the title: the reptilian Gorn, familiar to fans of the original series as one of the many visible-zipper foes that Kirk wrestled shirtless with his iconic two-handed slingshot punch. These Gorn would, based on appearances, look at anything short of a ship-board phaser. Out of all of the historical enemies, the Gorn are a solid choice from a game-play perspective because we know little of their culture and history compared to many other races, and they certainly look distinctly threatening.
On a side note, DE seems to be one of the few third-party development houses that will actively be taking advantage of the PS3’s Move controller methodology. It will be interesting to see just how they utilize Sony’s all-but-completely-abandoned tech in this title.
Head over to StarTrekGame.com for more information on Namco Bandai and Digital Extreme’s Star Trek!
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