Star Trek or Star Wars, it’s been a decision that divided mankind since the start of both franchises. But that’s not what this article is about. In this article, we focus on Star Trek, like it or not but Ubisoft created an impressive Virtual Reality experience that makes you part of a bridge crew in the Star Trek universe. The dream of every Trekkie out there, but is it actually worth playing?
Learn how to control your ship
Although it’s been a dream for a lot of Trekkies, controlling your own ship isn’t an easy task, especially when you play it in virtual reality. Played on PlayStation 4, we could choose to play it with a traditional controller or both of the motion controllers. Needless to say, we took our Move controllers out of the closet and started playing with those. Making the immersion a lot better! Using the motion controllers works well but you’ll need to practice before you start the main game. Ubisoft added a walkthrough that’s really recommended to check out.
Your adventure starts on board of the U.S.S Aegis where you’ll have to perform one of the three different tasks. The tutorial shows you what’s expected from you and also gives you a small taste of what is yet to come. Let’s discuss the roles first. Let’s start with the captain, the player with the biggest responsibility. As captain, you oversee your ship and see the damage and location on the radar. It’s your job to shout directions to the officers on your ship in order to get to your destination. When all goes wrong, a captain can also perform every other job on the ship.
Next up is the engineer, in charge of the power on the ship. As an engineer, you can control the energy flow and can send it to specific parts of the ship to give it a small boost. An engineer can also repair the ship. As helm, you control the ship itself, a crucial role. If you’re under attack, the helm player will have to make sure the enemies stay in sight so you’re able to attack them. As helm you’re also able to control your ship in Impulse and Warp travels.
The last role is that of the tactical, this is the most action-packed. As tactical, you’re able to fire missiles at enemies and raise or lower your shields when you’re under attack. Of course, you’ll need to count on great maneuvers of the helm in order to attack the enemies. Working together holds the key to victory.
Time to discover the galaxy
Once you get through the tutorial, it’s time to start the campaign. At first, things start rather easy so you still have some time to adapt to the virtual environment. The campaign has six different missions to complete and will take around six hours to conquer. Once you completed those, you can venture forward in the Ongoing Voyages mode. An interesting mode that gives you randomly generated missions. On paper, this means you have an endless stream of missions to play but in reality, some of the missions look a little too familiar, only in a different environment. Don’t get me wrong, the game is definitely fun to play but due to it being a VR game, you won’t play it as long as let’s say a Call of Duty.
That being said, the Virtual Reality is nicely done. Ubisoft stayed true to the Star Trek vibe and managed to create a believable digital version of the franchise. If you’re a fan, you’ll look past the visual limitations and appreciate the setting of the game. If you’re playing this as a regular, non Star Trek fan, you’ll notice the game isn’t that sharp and the animations of the characters aren’t always as smooth as they should be. But don’t worry, waving at another player still is a sight for the sore eyes even if the game doesn’t use all the power of the PlayStation 4.
Going back to the roots
What would a Star Trek game be without the original U.S.S. Enterprise? Well, it’s in this game! The fun part about this ship is that the creators stayed true to the original movie. Meaning the Enterprise uses analog retro sci-fi systems that are a little harder to control. If you’re looking for an extra challenge or just a trip down memory lane, the Enterprise is the ship you’ll need to have.
Controlling this or another ship with your friends is an amazing experience that simply works just fine. You can play the game on your own but this means you’ll need to jump from role to role. If you play with friends or strangers online, you can always perform the job your best at and really form a crew to fight off those enemies. Playing in co-op really is the way it’s meant to be played and surprisingly, you’re able to find other players rather fast. Not a lot of gamers have access to VR technology so we don’t know how long the online community will be active, but as for now, it’s a rather active community of dedicated Star Trek fans. If you’re not into the franchise, you’ll find a crew of loyal Trekkies explaining everything you need to know in no time.
Conclusion:
Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a decent attempt to translate the Star Trek universe into an interactive Virtual Reality experience. It works surprisingly well and actually offers a lot of fun when you’re able to play it with some friends. Too bad the game doesn’t stay that interesting to really invest a lot of time into it, even to fans. That being said, it’s definitely worth giving a shot if you’ve always dreamt of being part of a ‘real’ Star Trek crew. One of the better VR games on the market right now.
