Don’t get us wrong, there is a fair bit of effort put in here, much more than other movie licensed games like Thor and Green Lantern. With an all star cast of writers and every single voiceover in the game directly from the real actors soon to star in Star Trek; Into Darkness, there is a good bit of polish in some areas. The key word in that sentence is ‘some’. With plot help from God of War alumni as well as input from the movie scripters, you’d think the plot was going to be something to turn heads, but even that was altogether underwhelming, a by the books romp from start to finish.

The gameplay is your standard third person shooting fare, uninspired and dependent wholly on cover based shooting like a space age Gears of War (i know, that simile doesn’t really work but whatever.) The GOOD things about the combat is the range of weapon, it likes to throw all different kinds of weapons at you with multiple firing modes to bring uniqueness and variety to your shooting. ALongside this you can use your famous tricorder in certain ways such as disabling enemy weapons temporarily in order to get the drop on them. Things like that are a nice touch but at the same time it’s generally just corridor shooting with some sorry excuses for puzzles thrown in in between which generally consist of “USE TRICORDER TO MAKE THAT THING STOP DOING A THING OR START DOING A THING.”

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The controls are somewhat functional, though the game itself is riddled with glitches, several times while jumping through midair we were clinging and shimmying along ledges that didn’t exist. The AI for enemies is piss poor with them dicking around at random, and only occasionally remembering they are trying to kill you. Textures that are good in some places and bad in others showing a completely lack of consistency aside from character models. Alongside this characters can clip and run through each other with ease, melding into weird jumbles of themselves. Sound is reasonable, with an epic score penned by the same creators of the movies music, there is little wrong with it, thankfully the weapons all sound unique and have their own different feelings, not just unsatisfying pew-pew-pews.

Co-Op can be functional if you’ve got another pal with the game, at which point it can kind of be fun dicking around the enterprise and having some jokes while you’re at it. However if you’re running solo you are stuck with an AI partner, this guy is going to be the bane of your life, not following order, prompts and will stand by a door you are clearly waiting for him to help you open for ten minutes, waiting for you to ask him please and provide a suitable sacrifice.

Alongside this the gameplay is peppered with small mini games to do things like heal an injured members wounds, open doors, put out fires, remove kernels from ears of corn, put one foot in front of the other, etc. Some of which can be a little fun, but after the first or second time, you just wish you could turn the whole damn thing off. Doing these in a way that does not advance the plot e.g. dicking around with fire extinguishers never works in the way you intended it to.

In closing Star Trek is a forgettable experience, while nowhere near as bad as Aliens; Colonial Marines, not playing the game which apparently links the two films together will more than likely have no effect on you whatsoever. With glitches up the arse, a buttfuck retarded AI system, and a boring plot, Star Trek is a bag of borrowed tricks and gimmicks, no phaser setting will delete it from my memory. What makes it worse is the fact it could have been saved, they didn’t tighten up any of the things that were apparently wrong with it on our first hands on. Watch the film, it’s apparently great, but with all the games that are out on the market at the moment this is not worth a full price release by anyones stretch of the imagination.

Keep grindin’.