Star Trek: Invasion
Starfleet's long-range probes detect a massive Borg invasion fleet headed for
Sector 001 - an incursion that couldn't happen at a worse time, since Starfleet
is still licking its wounds after the costly Dominion War. Worf, now Klingon
Ambassador to the Federation, dons his Starfleet uniform once more to head up
the training and deployment of the Academy's ace Red Squad pilots in a new class
of solo fighter vessel, the Valkyries. In the course of training, unwelcome
surprises come from all corners - the Romulans, the last remnants of the
Cardassian Empire, a Starfleet Captain who inexplicably goes renegade, and a new
threat as well... (Activision, 2000)
Cast includes: Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Michael Dorn
(Worf), Jeanette Goldstein (Typhon engineer), Joel Swetow (Cardassian Commander
/ Borg)
This long-awaited Star Trek game for the Playstation demonstrates that Sony's
nearly-ubiquitous little grey console still has a few tricks up its sleeve
before the PS2 grabs the spotlight.
How a game plays is the most important thing, of course, but it's hard not to
be stunned speechless by the graphics in Invasion. In the third mission,
which is an upper-atmospheric combat flight (aaah, the atmosphere - aaah!), the
scenery is enough to distract you to death the first time around. It's very
good stuff, marred only by the un-anti-aliased "polygon jump" that
plagues many Playstation games with lots of 3-D objects to track and render. If
this game is ported to the Dreamcast, look out - it'll be just like a visit to
the holodeck!
The controls are complex, but not un-learnable. If anything, this game
demands a good, solid, Sidewinder-style analog joystick - something about the
Playstation's usual dual shock analog controllers just doesn't seem...worthy,
somehow. I've been able to pull some nosebleed evasive maneuvers, especially
the first time I finally seized that damn Cardassian freighter at the wormhole,
but I'd like to try this with a big, solid, flight-sim-friendly joystick.
The game advances relentlessly once you get going, and it's hard to put the
controller down and resist going for it one more time. The pace is aided
tremendously by a minimum of cut scenes interrupting the action - and most of
these can be aborted, though I recommend watching them at least once just for
the pure spectacle of it. The voice work is well done, with Michael Dorn
carrying the bulk of the load. There is no digitized video to take up huge gobs
of the disc - Activision got it right. The game, not the bells and whistles,
takes top priorty. And that's why this one looks great and plays smoothly.
Of course, Trek fans everywhere will wonder: is it worthy of the Star Trek
name? Sure it is. The plot of the game seems to have been well thought out,
and great care was taken in placing the game within the continuity of the
various series - plus there's the added bonus in getting to see the Sovereign
class starship, namely the Enterprise-E, in all of her sleek glory. And truth
be told, it'd be cool to see some Valkyrie fighters in an upcoming movie -
they're kinda sexy little fighting machines. I know, because I've flown one a
few times.
Four quarters - a couple of minor irritants, but mostly a compelling and
addictive game.
