Star Trek: D-A-C (XBLA)

Star Trek games have, much like their TV counterparts (compared to the movies), concentrated more on the cerebral or the tactical than the action potential that "spaceships with guns" can bring to the table. There were exceptions, sure, but for the most part Star Trek games have presented only limited "twitch" excitement. Until now.

Star Trek D.A.C. (defend and conquer? defend attack conquer? it's never explained) is a top-down multiplayer arcade game for PSN and 360 (the version tested). The idea is pretty straight forward - choose either Federation or Romulan factions, choose one of three classes of ship (which affects weapons load-out, speed and controls) then get stuck into one of three multiplayer game types. There is (technically) AI opponents to play against offline in skirmishes but they're not the brightest and it's clear that they really only exist to let you learn the controls and mechanics in an offline sandbox. This game is multiplayer to the core.

The modes are pretty straight forward - there's a team deathmatch (first team to 50); attack and hold (grab the two open points that allow you to capture the enemy base and win); as well as an attack and defend mode where teams take turns either defending or attacking an objective via several (in-order) sub-objectives.

Controls work well enough, with the left stick always controlling the ship's trajectory, right usually being used to aim weapons (bombers just drop bombs out the back), right trigger firing your weapons and left trigger consuming power for boost. There are also power-ups you can collect, which are then triggered by the bumpers, as well as weapons upgrades that boost your main weapon's power.

The levels are few but they're well designed and definitely play quite differently strategically - it's a real shame there aren't any more however as they're not super big and become quite familiar very quickly. There are plenty of things you can collide with, as well as many sections you can actually fly around inside of - a great option to get through behind a heavily defended or contested front line.

The power-ups are all pretty standard stuff - one makes you invisible, another fires a torpedo, yet another makes a low-health clone that both draws enemy fire and fires weapons itself, bombs, shields - that sort of thing. Nothing particularly imaginative but it's all very Star Trek and they all work quite well - often tipping the balance either towards or away from you.

D.A.C. is fun to play but will remain so only as long as there are people playing it and although we had no trouble finding people to play against - it feels like a flash in the pan kind of game and it will remain to be seen how long the online community will last. Lag is almost non-existant, however, so you have a planet full of people to play against - don't write it off entirely in this regard.

Visually it works well enough - there's some really nice background content to some of the levels, particularly the big chunks of debris just floating around (like that sequence in the movie, if you've seen it). It can be a little unclear sometimes as to what you can collide with and what's actually in the background, however aside from looking like a rookie there's no real downside to slamming your ship around so it's not that big a deal.

All in all we've got a pretty simple game with very little content and no single player of any substance whatsoever. It's fun enough but it feels pretty expensive at 800 points. Fortunately the demo is online (it really has to be) so you have a pretty good chance to see how well the game works for you before dropping any hard-earned cash on it, which is something we at NZGamer suggest you do. Who knows, maybe this is the Star Trek game you've been looking for.