There hasn’t been a demand for squad based strategy games in the last few years. Star Trek: Away Team is Reflexive Entertainment’s respectable addition to the Trek franchise. With a clean interface, clear mission structure, and fun, addicting gameplay, Away Team is more then welcome. The simple, user-friendly interface combined with simplistic (sometimes too simple) gameplay equals a lot of fun.

Star Trek: Away Team puts the player in command of a 17-member squad of the Federation’s elite force. As Captain Refelian, gamers have to unravel a plot involving a Federation splinter group, Klingon scientists, the intrusive Borg and the Romulan division in search of a deadly biological weapon. While the story may be simplistic, it is at least easy to understand, and requires no previous knowledge of the Star Trek universe (although, it would help). Intertesting, and compelling, nonetheless.

The gameplay, like the story, is simplistic, but entertaining, and fun. Players begin every mission at the loadout screen, where they get to select which member of the away team is best suited for the mission. The action begins by beaming into a dangerous situation with a series of primary and secondary objectives. New objectives will occasionally pop up during a mission, but everything is kept clear with a simple tap of the objectives button. Moving the away team through the 2D worlds is simple and straightforward. Officers can be selected by clicking on the characters, their portraits or their corresponding numbers on the keyboard. Hitting the A button will select all characters, and selecting their run speed is as simple as tapping the X button.

A useful mini-map, complete with blinking blue objective points, makes getting through the world fast and easy.The objectives throughout the 18 missions are always fixed, so the real strategy and variety comes in how gamers choose to complete the objective. Stealth play is possible thanks to personal cloaking devices, silent Vulcan nerve pinches and sniper fire. Or demolition experts can be used to chuck grenades and then blast the survivors. The key comes in choosing the right collection of crewmembers at the loadout screen.

Emphasis is put on slow, gradual progression. The more cautious you are, and the more you analyze your surrondings, the seemingly easier objectives are to complete. There are two reasons for this. First, the game’s extremely useful “pause time”, where gamers can press the “enter” key on their keyboard, pause the game, and assign actions to the team. Then, by pressing “enter” again, the game will continue, and carry out the actions you just assigned your team. While this feature is great, it theoretically allows you to just pause the game, pull up the mini map, and browse around the level and know exactly where you need to go, since objective points are marked with flashing blue boxes. Which brings us to the second point. Since there is no fog of war, again, players could literally go into pause time, and plot out exactly where they need to go in order to carry out mission objectives. Enemies are even revealed as red dots on the mini map. The entire point of stealth, and the “unknown” is totally nonexistent, since everything is already known – no suspense. The minimap is useful, but too useful.

Equally as disheartening is the fact that the NPC AI is utterly laughable at times – however a couple patches should at least help resolve this problem. Officers are complete puppets unless under the direct control of the gamer. For example, if an enemy attacks one of your squad members, they just utter out a ridiculously understated cry, “I am hit,” or “I’m under attack.” Now, I honestly don’t remember one point during Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket when a soldier got hit in the chest from a rifle and just stood there, did nothing but cry in a jolly voice, “I am hit!” After attacked, you yourself must command your squad to automatically attack the enemy. This is particularly a problem given that the death of any member of the away team is a fail state in almost all of the levels.

However, if you’re able to get over these miniscule problems in Away Team, there is an entire 18 levels full of exciting, fun, addicting gameplay. Multiplayer mode consists of a Co-operative mode on a Local Area Network (LAN), only.

Gamers who didn’t enjoy Commandos will probably not get into the Away Team-style squad play. The missions usually only take two or three tries to get them right, and the whole thing can be over rather quickly. But I definitely enjoyed the superb voice acting, including some Next Generation favorites. It won’t win any awards for graphics or AI, but Away Team is a solid and fun experience, nonetheless.

Rating
4/5