Pros• Three different characters with three different mission objectives• Smooth gameplay • Engaging gameplay that makes you feel as though you're actually accomplishing something • Should appeal to non-Trekkies as well |
Cons• Simon & Schuster are involved• The Star Trek market is isolated to Starfleet uniform wearing jury duty freaks |
Bottom LineIf you have ever dreamed of joining Starfleet thus ending the destructive conflict and bringing order to the galaxy, then Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen could be your ticket to space adventure. When the next line of Star Trek games came across my desk I certainly wasn’t in any hurry to pop it into the CD drive—especially when I noticed that Simon & Schuster were involved—and listen to Patrick Stewart or William Shatner or whomever babble on about the dilithium crystals failing or Klingons in pursuit of the Enterprise or attacking Sleestacks, yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, after much procrastination, I relented and found myself ready to take over the body and soul of Captain Sisko, Major Kira, or Lt. Commander Worf in Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen.Of course I can only play as the one truly interesting character, the Neanderthal-esque alien of the bunch. Now that I have become Worf, I feel six feet tall and virtually indestructible, “tlhIngan jIH,” I bellow to those in the EP office for “I am a Klingon!” The Fallen follows in the line of other Star Trek shooters Voyager: Elite Force and Klingon Honour Guard, and ties into the Millennium saga, a trilogy of paperbacks and audio books by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. The story represents an untold chapter of Deep Space Nine, set towards the end of the sixth season. Utilizing stealth, brute strength, team communication, and an assortment of weapons and gadgets, players will find themselves playing as one of three characters, and each will have unique and character-specific missions. Missions will take place aboard familiar locations within Deep Space Nine and the U.S.S. Defiant, and on some new locales including a Bajoran monastery, a secret Cardassian military base, a hostile alien jungle, and a Jem'Hadar internment camp. Developers, The Collective, have redefined the Unreal Tournament engine by adding a third-person camera (to simulate the look of the show), an inverse kinematics and skeletal animation system, enhanced particle rendering, and real-time facial animation with automated phoneme recognition —if you're not fluent in Star Trekease, what all this gobbley-gook really means is that The Fallen is a pretty damn good title. Like any decent Klingon, Worf wields the Sword of Honour, the Bat’leth, with ten other weapons, each with multiple firing modes, up for grabs, including the phaser, phaser rifle, grenade launcher, plasma thrower, and a Cardassian disruptor. With the exception of Avery Brooks (Sisko) and Colm Meaney (O’Brien), all cast members of DS9 lend their voices to this project, adding…realism? to the Star Trek universe. Although the Borg aren’t featured in this outing, a new race of bio-analogous marauders, known as the Grigari are the predominant enemy. The Grigari are “sociopathic scavengers and pirates, obtaining items and knowledge from one culture to trade with another, doing whatever needs to be done to close a deal, from trading fairly to mass murder,” according to The Collective. Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen is the third-person shooter/action/adventure title Trekkies have waited eons for. And if all goes well, then you’ll have restored peace, justice, and excitement to the Star Trek universe. |
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Star Trek Deep Space 9: The Fallen
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