Red Alert!

I had heard about this game a few months back, but at the time I had my nose buried far too deeply in my GameCube to worry too much about my PC game library. However, I was wandering through Babbage's last Saturday and I happened to run across this title for $30, and I just couldn't resist.

First of all, I would have to say that this game is a Trekker's dream come true. You can take out your favorite Romulan, Klingnon, Federation, or even Borg ship and blow stuff up. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. You can go to red alert, arm phases or disruptors, and fire photon torpedoes. What more could you ask for?

However, I have spent enough time with this game to notice a few problems. There seem to be a number of fairly random bugs that can tend to have very unpleasant effects on gameplay. Furthermore, the number of selectable ships is limited and there seem to be some balancing issues. Fortunately, a look around the internet has revealed that there is a fairly ardent fan community that have made all kinds of ships, patches, and mods to remedy these problems.

This game is very pretty, with each ship rendered in a surprising amount of detail. A neat little feature is that both you and your enemy began to show the effects of battle damage in the traditional Star Trek fashion, with dark scarring on your hull. The sound is also nice, with authentic sound effects and music that sounds as if it were ripped right out an episode or movie. There are even voice-overs by Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, which is a nice touch.

Well, this game has thoroughly sucked me in. If you will excuse me, it is time for me to go and indulge some more of my Trek fantasies.