Star Trek: The Video Game is a third-person action-adventure video game, developed by Digital Extremes and co-published by Namco Bandai Games and Paramount Pictures, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. It released on April 23rd 2013.
The developer Digital Extremes had a meeting with the filmmakers and wanted to make the Star Trek game to expand the franchise into bigger and more ambitious projects. The pros and cons and previous failures of movie-based games were discussed. The game began development in 2010 and was announced the following year at E3 for a 2012 release. It was subsequently delayed to 2013.
The developers wanted to create the characters of the game into the likeness of the Actors in the movie. Vice president of Paramount Brian Miller stated in an interview that, “Once we decided to make a game, we thought about what kind of game we wanted to make and so we looked at Star Trek – what is Star Trek at its core – and for us that was Kirk and Spock and that lead to it being a co-op game. And from that it kept rolling along, we would do a co-op game where you can play as Kirk or Spock. No other Star Trek game had done that before. But if we are going to do Kirk and Spock, then we need to get Chris (Pine) and Zach (Quinto), and if we are going to get them we might as well get everyone else, so it then it turned into: we must make the most authentic Star Trek game that we can.”
Other cast members from the film who will be contributing their voices and likenesses include Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), Karl Urban (“Bones” McCoy) and Anton Yelchin 9Chekov).
Various games and genres were studied and mechanics implemented to create a Star Trek game whose experience would mirror the first film released in 2009. It has been described as “splicing Metroid Prime into Uncharted” by Digital Extremes creative director Sheldon Carter.
Miller described it as having “elements of a shooter, elements of exploration, adventure and discovery. This is what the new Star Trek is about.” The plot was written by God of War, Shank and Skylanders: Spryo’s Adventure writer Marianne Krawczyk in collaboration with film producers Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, and writer Damon Lindelof.
Story
Star Trek: The Video Game takes place after the 2009 film and before “Into Darkness” and its events will be official canon in the new Star Trek universe. The storyline follows Kirk and Spock as they take on the Gorn and recover a lost device.
The game begins when the Enterprise intercepts a distress signal from a group of Vulcans who are stranded on a space station. Among one of them is T’Mar, a childhood friend of Spock, who both share an interesting history with each other. The game’s story will be canon to the Star Trek universe. Kirk and Spock meet with T’Mar’s father Surok, who explains that the station’s power from the base was lost after they were attacked by the Gorn and thus begins the game.
Gameplay
Kirk and Spock will each have different gameplay attributes. Kirk can call an orbital strike from the USS Enterprise, while Spock can use his Vulcan mind melding ability to unlock certain memories.
Also, while Kirk has phase set to Stun, Spock uses a more silent weapon that freezes enemies. The player can explore the USS Enterprise and use research points collected by the player and upgrade phasers and communicators, not too dissimilar from a game like Mass Effect 2. The game also features ship-to-ship combat.
The enemy Gorn species will vary in intelligence, gender and size. They are depicted as being skilled with special poisons, which is used to turn Vulcan’s and Starfleet personnel on Kirk and Spock.
This serves as a means for players to use non-lethal takedowns and earn points. There are different takedowns depending on who you are playing as while trying to fight a Gorn. For example, Kirk’s takedowns are much more aggressive while Spock can walk up to an enemy and use his neck pinch technique to render them unconscious. The Gorn also deploy attack drones, turrets and mines which can be hacked.
The choice in character will also affect how the crew will interact with them. The game also features cavernous swimming game play. Co-op can be allowed during Enterprise game play, with one player controlling the phasers and the other using the torpedoes. Players cannot change between Kirk and Spock during a mission but the game does allow other players to drop in and play co-operatively.
DLC
Thus far, DLC confirmed for the game includes the Elite Officer Pack available with pre-orders that provides an array of alternate costume skins and weapons.
These include the Brawler Pack (Kirk leather jacket skin, Spock Vulcan Science Academy skin); the Academy Pack (Kirk Starfleet Academy skin, Spock officer dress uniform skin, Academy phaser); Kobayashi Maru Pack (Kobayashi Maru skins); Stealth Pack (Stealth outfits, Starfleet Type IV Stealth Sniper Rifle and extra ammo); and the Kelvin Pack (USS Kelvin uniform skins, Kelvin hand phaser)
