To boldly bore

by ERIK LEIJON

My expectations concerning the new, lean and mean XBox Live Arcade downloadable game Star Trek D.A.C. (Deathmatch, Assault & Conquest) (XBLA/Paramount, Naked Sky) were low to begin with. I knew full well that the straightforward 2D space shooter would in no way follow the narrative of the recent Star Trek theatrical reboot, and that the demure, $13-a-head download-only release meant that an epic sci-fi adventure this would not be. But just like I’m biting my tongue trying not to turn valuable plot points of the film into sarcastic put-downs, I feel there’s way too much being held back here in the name of simplicity.

If there’s a prime directive in gaming, it would probably be something to the effect of “make sure your game is at the very least conceptually fun.” An old school Asteroids-meets-the Enterprise seems like a can’t-miss proposition to at the very least satiate my need for Star Trek in between IMAX screenings, and for those times when even I feel compelled to drop The Final Frontier in my Blu-Ray player. Yet beyond some colourful, Spore cell-phase 2D-backgrounds on 3D ships, the core of D.A.C. is woefully lacking in depth and simply boring. Second season of Voyager boring.

The different gameplay modes and online multiplayer options dwindle down to picking one of six ships (three Federation and three Romulan), flying around a small arena shooting enemy ships until the bases are captured, or 50 kills are reached, or you pass out and awake in an alternate dimension where Bill Shatner still captains the Enterprise and Sisko didn’t return to the prophets.

Your ship and everyone else’s are seemingly made of cardboard, so don’t bother raising shields and calling red alert—chances are your vessel will be obliterated momentarily and your escape pod will hurtle into space as you watch the respawn timer count down. Actually, the escape pod portion of the game was the most fun I had, desperately trying to dodge photon torpedoes and phazers at impulse speeds, desperately awaiting the next Galaxy-class starship to ship out of drydock.

I recently had the opportunity to revisit the old Mega Drive/Genesis Micro Machines with three oddly accented Britons, and remembered those rare pre-Mario Kart 64 four-player experiences. In order to fit all the gameplay on one screen, the action needed to be compact and furious, and Star Trek D.A.C. clearly has those old classics in mind.

Sadly, just like the original series’ show props, modernity has rendered our past notions of the future quite irrelevant, and D.A.C. seems more like a laughable relic. Playing it online is less fun than playing it with three people in the same room—at least then you can share the misery of working through such a simple, archaic game.

Online drive

Sega has had serious trouble reinventing their most famous franchises (Sonic, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Nights etc.), so perhaps they should continue the approach they took with OutRun Online Arcade (XBLA, PSN/Sega, Sumo Digital) which is to only slightly improve the graphics while leaving the longstanding gameplay intact. Based on the successful 2006 reboot, OutRun is an arcade driving game that borrows heavily from the 1986 original.

Even the new features seem like logical progressions: from the specific missions where you take orders from your shotgun-riding girlfriend to marathon races, OutRun is about unrealistic, drift-heavy racing, passing an endless parade of rivals, summery jazz music and quick reflexes. Racing online against five human opponents doesn’t add much value, although like D.A.C., OutRun’s identically low price point means it only needs to provide a weekend’s worth of entertainment.