Star Trek: Tactical Assault: The Continuing Missions
Company: Bethesda Softworks
It's time to boldly go back to where it all began. Star Trek: Tactical Assault is an odd mix of space combat, RPG and strategy games. In the past, Star Trek games that exist on the ship-wise scale (as opposed to the ones that let you control the individual crew members) have typically been large scale, turn-based or real-time strategy games that pit your empire or federation against all of the others. Tactical Assault is similar to those, but lets you focus on the wars on an individual ship-by-ship basis. Instead of controlling the hundreds of ships that each race has at its disposal, you play as a captain and go from sector to sector fighting out little skirmishes and managing your crew to better your government on a more individual level.
The first thing that struck me about Star Trek: Tactical Assault is how much effort Quicksilver Software put into getting the details of the time. Ships and races from the original movies are straight off of the silver screen. I specify the original movies since the Enterprise is the NCC-1701-A and the Klingons are the style we know today. The only notable vocal talent that is marked on the game's credits page is that of William Shatner, and the Shat comes out in all of his Kirk-goodness. But that coupled with the great authentic visuals seem to be just enough to sell this game as a true Trek title.
Star Trek: Tactical Assault lets you join the Federation, The Klingon Empire, The Romulan Empire or the Gorn or Orion Fleets. The game's skirmishes start off with everyone controlling a Frigate class ship and each time a ship is destroyed, they are re-spawned with the next level up ship (i.e. Destroyer, Light Cruiser, Heavey Cruiser and Dreadnought). In the end, the last player standing wins the battle. The other modes act as a series of skirmishes that allow you to upgrade your crew and tactical abilities. And each race has their own strengths and weakness that mirror the Star Trek Universe pretty well. Romulans and Klingons have cloaking capabilities while the Federation has a quicker sheild recharge rate.
As I said at the beginning, Star Trek: Tactical Assault is an odd mixture of space combat with branching storylines, and the ability to upgrade your crew members and how they react to the various alert stages. The overall package that I got to experience in the preview build seemed like it would feel right at home in my somewhat shamefully large Star Trek collection. Tactical Assault is coming out for both the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, but I didn't get a chance to play the DS version of this game, so how it handles the DS' unique features and how that game will differ from this one, I cannot say. But if it is anything like the experience I had previewing the PSP version -- it will be something to look forward to. Expect to see both versions of this game on the shelves soon, and our review of it not long after.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Bethesda's Star Trek Home Page Bethesda Software Home Page Memory Alpha -- The Star Trek Wiki
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