Star Trek: D-A-C Review
Star Trek: D-A-C is somewhat honest in that it's title tells you right up front that it comes with three game modes. D is for deathmatch, A for assault, and C for conquest. In addition to the three modes of play there are three ship types in the game and four maps. If all that doesn't sound like much, it's because it's not. There's not much to this top-down shooter and what's there isn't all that entertaining. Star Trek: D-A-C will keep you entertained for about the same amount of time as it takes for you to download it to your console.
The game has both single and multiplayer modes, but the single player mode is just the multiplayer game played against AI-controlled ships. You could consider the single player game to be offline practice for the multiplayer game, but the multiplayer game is so simple there's hardly a need to cut your teeth offline first. In short, there's no real reason to play the single player mode and it's definitely not worth spending your hard-earned Microsoft points on the game if you're just looking for a single player game.
The multiplayer game is played as a battle of Federation vs. Romulans, but outside of the different look of the ships there's no difference between the two sides. There are three types of ships to choose from, a fighter that shoots beams in a forward direction, a bomber that drops bombs behind it that explode on a slight delay, and a starship that fires phasers that are aimed with a reticule that can be moved independently of your ship. There are some minor differences between the ships in terms of speed and so forth, but not so much that it really makes a difference as to which one you pick, and even though three ship classes is made for a paper-scissors-rock counter system it's a missed opportunity in the game. Just pick the ship that you think looks the coolest or switch back and forth for variety's sake.
Deathmatch is a team deathmatch game where you just fly around the map looking for enemies to shoot. There's nothing more to it, no need to coordinate with teammates or anything as sophisticated as that; just a basic mob scene of ships shooting at each other. Assault places a few rings on the map that are captured by keeping a ship within the ring for a short period of time. This mode is a bit better than deathmatch in that at least it focuses the action at a few key points on the map. The last mode is a modification on conquest in that there is one team capturing the rings and the other defending, and the rings must be captured in a sequential order. The maps available look nice enough and feature different background graphics, but they're all basically the same. There may be a few obstructions here and there, but overall they're just rectangular arenas effectively indistinguishable from one another.
All of this simplicity and lack of variety could be overlooked if the game itself was exciting, but unfortunately the gameplay is rather bland. Part of the problem is the size of the screen, which is too small in relation to the size of the ships. Ships go flying through the screen shooting wildly at each other before going off-screen again. Kills feel more random than they do a result of skill, so there's no real sense of satisfaction when you take out an enemy and every time you're destroyed it feels like it was a cheap shot. There are some power-ups floating through space that are apparently there to add to the variety, but they're all so underpowered as to be barely noticeable and add nothing to the game.
Star Trek D-A-C is a bare-bones release. There's no story, no cutscenes, and nothing Star Trek related outside of the Federation and Romulan logos and the look of some of the ships in the game. All you get is a pure top-down arcade shooter, and that shooter isn't that much fun. It's the kind of game you'll play for a few rounds before a strong feeling of "been there, don that" takes over and you move on to play something else. And I doubt you'll feel much motivation to give the game a second try later...
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
50%. Star Trek D-A-C has barely anything to do
with Star Trek and even worse has little to do with fun.
