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1. Jeyl - April 23, 2009

I’m still curious on why the Romulan ships are inspired by the borgified Narada. Maybe Nero gave them some of his technology in the end?

2. ucdom - April 23, 2009

Those nacelles are definitely further apart than the movie ship

3. Jeyl - April 23, 2009

#2.

Fascinating. I didn’t notice that. Good catch. Maybe the Enterprise goes through a tiny refit in the end?

4. German Trek Fan - April 23, 2009

i don’t like that the warp nacelles look like rocket boosters.

5. ucdom - April 23, 2009

Didn’t I read an interview on here somewhere with the guys who designed the JJ-prise, and did the movie FX, that they wanted moveable bits on the ship. Apparently the deflector dish moves in and out, and expands, and also “the fins” move apart at warp speed. Does this mean the nacelles move apart at warp speed??? Kind of the reverse of Voyager.

6. Commander K - April 23, 2009

DAC: Defend and Conquer!

7. The Last Maquis - April 23, 2009

Hey Where’s The Part where you get to Seek Out New Life and New civilizations…??? oh Wait I’m thinking about STAR TREK!!!!!! sorry. No offense, But this Game looks Dumb. The other Star Fleet ships Don’t look Like Star Fleet Ships. The Romulan Ships Don’t Look Like Romulan Ships.
Which means this whole thing is unrecognizable. Is that what The “NEW” Star Trek is going to be about?? just Shoot ‘em up fun? these kinda Games Are Fun, when it’s Something Else, like Starwars, or whatever. Not Trek. other than that the graphics are nice…..

8. Selor - April 23, 2009

@7 This Path is made just by Bethesda a couple of years earlier with Legacy (PC), Conquest (Wii) and Encounters (PS2)… everyone is just a simple, mindless shoot’em’up

9. afterace - April 23, 2009

This DAC game looks like 1995….

10. Snake56 - April 23, 2009

@ 7: It’s just an arcade game, it’s not supposed to follow every code of Star Trek. Just space ships destroying each other.

11. giggidy - April 23, 2009

Oh man you have to love that Maru scenario linked at the end. I love the pages and pages of people saying they would let their crews die and refuse to violate romulan space etc.

Cryptic would become my personal god if they added the scenario into the game at a high level. I want to see how many of these armchair moralists will sacrifice their character and all the bridge crew they spent months levelling up. I want the characters to be deleted when they die from the disease.

12. TSFC - April 23, 2009

@7

LOL yet another case where “change” is not desireable!

13. thebiggfrogg - April 23, 2009

Re: 7 and 10
Except it isn’t just the arcade game. The entire premise of STO is also “space cowboy shoot-em’-up,” which, I agree, ain’t Trek. How about some CREATIVE programming that involves the “explore strange new worlds” and “seek out new life” sides of Trek. This is lazy, no-brainer work. Substitute the graphics and this could be any other space opera: Star Wars, Stargate, or Galaxy Quest, for that matter. As much as I love space action and adventure (I do like Star Wars) I’d love to see something that really made Trek Trek and I hope the movie doesn’t jettison those bits just to get a rip roaring story. If it does I’ll abandon ship, no win scenario or no.

14. Star Trackie - April 23, 2009

Looks like a Ferderation-i-fied version of Asteroids. Should be fun!

15. David - April 23, 2009

Although i understand the need for a “different” game, you have to realize two things:

1) Like it or not, “space cowboy shoot-em’-up” is a part of Star Trek. Does “Balance of Terror” and the latter half of “Wrath of Khan” ring any bells?

2) I can’t remember when there was a movie tie-in video/computer game (but i’m not big into the console games) – so first off, be thankful at least they made this. Generic, but this is a marketable game who’s primary goal is to get young guys (the xBox crowd) into the theaters (this fits the “action” theme of the trailers). Want a “explore strange new worlds” game? Sounds like that MMORPG is more your style.

16. Jim Durdan - April 23, 2009

It’s a freaking $10.00 game, it’s a shoot em up for Vulcanian sake. You want a long involved role playing trek game, it sure as heck isn’t going to be $10.00. I’ve been a trek fan since 1969, and I am as much a lover of canon as anyone. But anyone who thinks that a $10.00 game is going to reflect every aspect of Star Trek is nuts.

For Trek to survive and grow it needs to evolve. Trek stopped evolving a long time ago. If the show is to continue in the future, then it needs to speak with a more modern voice. It’s unfortunate that some fans have become so hid bound that they won’t even give the movie a chance. I repeat again.

Botom line it’s a $10.00 game, it’s not going to be a huge interactive Star Trek experience.

17. Dab - April 23, 2009

The answer to the “D-A-C” mystery is evident in the description of the game:

” * Team Deathmatch: Teams go head-to-head in a winner-takes-all fight to the finish
* Conquest: Teams must protect and conquer Control Points in space
* Assault: Teams take turns trying to dominate or defend a sector of space”

Deathmatch – Assault – Conquest

18. WhatInBlueBlazes?! - April 23, 2009

14–

I was definitely thinking of Asteroids, myself. I foresee fast-paced, addictive gameplay. Perhaps the storyline won’t be engrossing or deep, but I doubt we’ll see that in many $10 budget titles. Looks like fun.

For those who are upset or disappointed by the fact that DAC appears to be a shoot-em-up, I should point out that the overwhelming majority of the early Star Trek games were essentially shoot-em-ups.

With the exception of 25th Anniversary and A Final Unity, most Trek games have been largely combat-centric. It’s (for better or worse) much easier for a game developer to sell (or design) a game on the premises of action and competition than it is on the premises of diplomacy and exploration.

I don’t think that the ideal Trek game should rely on combat for its core, as I think Star Trek was a great deal more than just action. All the same, a good Trek game needs to have the excitement and adventure of the show … just like it needs the intelligence and spirit that really made the show what it was.

19. Blowback - April 23, 2009

Hope it’s more fun than ST: Legacy… Bethesda really dropped the ball on that title…

20. Paulaner - April 23, 2009

#7

Relax. It’s just a shoot-em-up. I’ve yet to see a real Star Trek game. Maybe “A Final Unity”, but adventures are (alas) niche games.

21. Paulaner - April 23, 2009

#19 “I don’t think that the ideal Trek game should rely on combat for its core, as I think Star Trek was a great deal more than just action”

I agree. That’s why “Star Trek” and “videogames” belongs to different worlds :)

22. WhatInBlueBlazes?! - April 23, 2009

21 — Quote me out of context AND get my number wrong? ; P

In all seriousness, though, I would agree to some extent that the ideal Trek experience lies beyond the purview of video games. It isn’t always within the purview of television, as we’ve definitely seen over the years (TNG: “Shades of Gray” or TOS: “The Way to Eden,” for a couple horrific examples).

That doesn’t mean that a Trek game can’t be fun, even if it isn’t embracing the zeitgeist (thanks ZQ) of the Trek experience.

23. thereare4lights - April 23, 2009

@1 Likely. 25 years is a long time. He must’ve done something else besides brooding

24. Mirror Jordan - April 23, 2009

Does anybody think PSN will get it the week after it releases on Live?

25. rangerone314 - April 23, 2009

All Trek games bow before my heavily modded Klingon Academy game. Pretty much any Star Trek ship from any era from Enterprise to Nemesis (which is actually fun to have the Scimitar get attacked by Archer’s Enterprise and do no damage, eventually I yawn and cloak the Scimitar and unleash a volley of 20 torpedos and vaporize his puny ship)

Also fun is Borg cube vs Imperial Star Destroyer (from Star Wars), or Centauri cruiser (with planetary assault mass driver) vs Star Destroyer.

I also have many Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica ships.

Its kind of fun doing USS Defiant from DS9 vs 20 TOS Klingon cruisers. One time I fired two quantum torpedos at Klingon ship; the torpedo blew a hole in it and crippled it – the 2nd torpedo flew through the hole and destroyed another Klingon ship BEHIND that one!

Has a bit of a learning curve with the numberkey menu system, but after 8 years I’m pretty good with it, and the game holds up pretty well after 8 years, especially having several hundred modded ships.

Using scripts you can modify how many ships deploy in a battle, hence a huge battle between 500 Klingon ships and 200 Starfleet ships, all TOS except for my core group of 22 USS Defiant ships.

The TOS ships are pretty fun, especially since I reprogrammed some of the ships to have the TOS effects, like torpedos. There is even stuff from the Star Fleet Technical Manual, like the huge Space Station with dock-spheres and one-nacelled scouts and destroyers, and even transport-tugs, and a TOS Miranda type (USS Avenger).

26. Praetor Tal - April 23, 2009

PORT 2 LINUX PLZ KTHNX!!!1!

(both!)

27. Telly1138 - April 23, 2009

There’s no reason that some software publisher can’t get “Star Trek” right. It’s not that hard to make a game that’s part space-battle, part logic problem, part ‘protect”.

Hell, if they can make a video game out of “24″ and include the brainy CTU analysis aspects of the show as well as Jack shooting anyone not American, they can make a “Star Trek” game.

Why are all of these games space battle? EVen if they can’t get the cast members needed to record the lines, I’d settle for a well done game that was a mix of character play and space travel/combat.

As for “movie insipred” games, handheld game for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was released, as well as games for “Star Trek: Generations” and a sequel to “Star Trek: Insurrection” called “Star Trek: Hidden Evil”.

28. Colonel West - April 23, 2009

I still have the Generations game for PC, it was actually pretty good, a mix of first person shooter/RPG away teams and mission based levels on the big E.

Birth of the Federation though is by far and away my favourite Trek game, Civilization meets Trek, the perfect combination! I’d pay many Quatloo’s for a sequel but unfortunately Microprose got bought out by Hasbro shortly after the game was released and it got lost in the shuffle.

The last Trek games I bought were Elite Force and that god awful one for the PS2 where you were basically an X-Wing pilot but I’ll probably check out Star Trek: Online.

29. THX-1138 - April 23, 2009

Will this be as good as Star Trek checkers was on the old Startrek.com site?

30. Paulaner - April 23, 2009

#22 “Quote me out of context AND get my number wrong? ; P”

Sorry about that :)

31. Unbel1ever - April 23, 2009

Well, 10 $ seems a bit much for what is essentially a flash game.

32. TrekTwenty - April 23, 2009

13

One of the more dominant aspects of STO is exploration. “Seeking out new life and new civilizations.” Which is to say, you can point your ship in any which way and see what’s out there. From what has been released to so far, STO is very much trying to be true to the nature of Star Trek.

33. Dunsel Report - April 23, 2009

Looks better than the unreleased Star Trek V NES game, a playable ROM of which is floating around on the Net.

34. JonWes - April 23, 2009

Yeah, I’m hoping STO has exploration missions that involve meeting new aliens and discovering new cities and worlds and all that. I don’t mind space battle games for Trek, especially for what it is.

Oh, and I have to say that I just got Legacy and think it’s a lot of fun! There’s a bit of a learning curve learning the controls (like the recent Iron Man game) but once you do I think it’s pretty enjoyable and the graphics are beautiful. It is harder then it seems like it should be sometimes, but all in all I thought it was pretty nice.

35. DGill - April 23, 2009

#1

Nah, it’s just because the designers were lazy. It’s not like they actually thought this game out at all. It was rushed out (like the viral games) to fill that extra marketing quota. Even though it’s cheap (and it should be), it looks like one of the most boring games to hit the market in 5 years.

36. Lazar - April 23, 2009

I have to second the question of why the Romulan ships look anything like the late 24th century Narada.

37. Devon - April 23, 2009

It’s a good thing some of you don’t work in game development because you’d cause the company to lose money. This type of game is fine, they know what sells.

38. They call me Stasiu - April 23, 2009

While DAC may not follow the broader ideals of Trek, I still hope it will be a fun little Arcade game to play.
And the Generations bridge from the STO video looks frikkin’ awesome!

39. DGill - April 23, 2009

#37

Yeah, and there are a hundred other games out there with the same approach that people could be playing instead of this game. “Armada”, which came out nearly a decade ago, is still exciting and it has the same approach. The only difference between the two is that this one is just the player shooting at little Naradas; “Armada” had the benefit of choice and narrative, not to mention more ships. I just expected something better from a movie tie-in game. But hey, it’s ten dollars. If people want to play it, I hope they get their money’s worth (and that wasn’t a sarcastic comment). With that said, I’m looking forward to “STO” because from the outset it looks like it will be an exceptionally decent Star Trek game. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play “Starfox”.

40. The Man from Saskatoon - April 23, 2009

Not sure if it’s been said already, but this looks like another variant on a couple of other Xbox360 Arcade games – Wing Commander Arena, and Battlestar Galactica.

From the screenshots it looks like the identical engine, just re-skinned for Star Trek. Throw in a couple of new game modes, and boom – $10 downloadable tie-in game.

Having played both WCA and BSG on the 360, I can say they’re fun distractions, and there’s definitely some strategy involved, but the game probably won’t hold your attention for more than a few hours.

41. WhatInBlueBlazes?! - April 23, 2009

Paulaner — no worries, just giving you a hard time! : )

42. King Zooropa - April 23, 2009

You guys are really laying it on thick lately with all the “we got the exclusive first look…” stuff lately. It’s crap, makes you look like amateurs, and most importantly of all … READERS. DON’T. CARE.

Cut it out.

43. JohnWa - April 23, 2009

28-

Birth of the Federation was one of the best Star Trek games ever. It had the rare quality of being both difficult and fun. It required a little bit of knowledge about the ST universe too. The fact that you only get access to certain wonders when you rule the minor race associated with that structure (e.g. the super soldier academy comes with the Angosians) gave it a uniquely Trek feel. You also have to choose which empire you play as carefully. The Romulans have cloaking devices, for instance, which gives a decisive edge in space battles. But their ships are practically worthless against orbital defence platforms. As the Federation, you had to provoke the other empires into declaring war on you (because your popular support takes a big hit when you’re the “aggressor”).

Now, there were problems with it. Memory leaks caused major slowdowns. There were some balance issues. Once the Borg show up, it is pretty much “game over” unless you have loads of Defiants or cloaked ships. But I remember playing it when it first came out and thinking: we finally had a winner.

So, of course, the developers didn’t bother to provide any support for this little gem. The game didn’t come with any Master of Orion / Galactic Civilizations style ship editor. The long promised memory leak patch was never released. And despite high interest from fans, a sequel never materialized.

44. LordCheeseCakeBreath - April 23, 2009

I don’t like the way they’re treating the warp engines as thrusters. Seems odd.

45. Gaming PC Web » PC Games | Confirmed: Star Trek D.A.C. coming to the PC - April 23, 2009

[...] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Share this article: [...]

46. WhatInBlueBlazes?! - April 23, 2009

43 –

You might be interested in Star Trek: Supremacy, which is a fan-made game that’s essentially a Birth of the Federation 2:

http://www.startreksupremacy.com/download.html

47. JoBlo - April 23, 2009

This MMORPG stuff being TNG based, is making me appreciate how important this restart is that we’re having, from the narration in that news story to the character conversation in Quark’s bar. There is so much meaningless canoniacle crap that needs to be thrown in to get a sense that the writers are die hard nerds, that it’s almost no fun. No non Trekkie is going to get the dabo table jargon, and the line after line of description of what happens in Quark’s bar, or really care.

It’s so exciting for this new movie to have an element of mystery to it, to discover things for the first time and not have a laundry list of things we have to go through to make if feel trekkie.

48. Will_H - April 23, 2009

Im gonna go ahead and skip this DAC, just looks like a pretty lame game wrapped in Star Trek.

49. trekbill - April 23, 2009

This game is just the modern version of the Trek game we played when I was in Junior High way back in 1978. We would go to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley and play on the computers there. There was a game called “Trek” which was text based and was based on the premise that the player was the captain of the Enterprise and the Klingons were firing at the ship. You were supposed to fire and take evasive maneuvers, as well as take advice from Mr. Spock. Alas, I always blew the ship up, which I think somehow Mr. Spock always informed me of. Anyway it must have been one of the first computer games based on Star Trek and it was essentially a shooter game. This new game is just a modern version of that game, perhaps aimed at Middle School kids who want to pretend their Captain of the Enterprise. Only now you don’t have to go to the Lawrence Hall of Science to play it.

50. Star Trackie - April 23, 2009

#42 “READERS. DON’T. CARE.”

I have no problem thinking on my own, King, but thank you…even if your bold assumption is wrong.

51. James R. Kirk - April 23, 2009

Divide and Conquer

52. NCC-73515 - April 23, 2009

How can we pay it if it’s a download? I don’t wanna give away any card numbers etc… so please make it available in stores and/or theaters (in Europe, I might add)!

53. Jesse - April 23, 2009

I agree with number four (and forty-four, maybe a few others). Warp nacelles are not supposed to be rockets. That’s what impulse engines are for.
Also, (to me at least) “shoot ‘em up” implies that you face many ships and destroy them without any provocation, communication, or any of the other things that lead to battles in Star Trek. In Wrath of Khan, for example, Khan wanted to kill Kirk because he had been marooned for fifteen years and his wife died. After an attack, some communication, a clever trick, and a few hours of repairs, the two ships met again for basically a duel. That’s not exactly “shoot ‘em up” to me.
Battles in Star Trek games are just fine, in my opinion (anything better would be difficult to make and unmarketable) , but the games that most resemble the battles of the shows and movies are the ones with a relatively slow pace, and balanced ships.

54. Colonel West - April 23, 2009

@43

great to see theres some BOTF fans still out there apart from myself! I still have my original disc and play it fairly often. you can tell the people that made it loved Trek, all the little things in it such as the crystaline entity, the tarellian plague vessel, regula one research station, not to mention the – Mudd extension you can put on it from the command line for the cheats.

whenever the borg attack you always lose at least 2 or 3 systems before you can muster a fleet together to get to them in time and it has to be at least 20 or 25 ships to destroy them and then you lose at least half of them.

chatting about it has given me the itch to get a game going, federation tech level one here i come!

@46

cheers for the link, i’m getting that now. There was so much potential for even a gamma/ delta quadrant expansion pack, i’d have loved if they had a second game level accessible through wormholes to another galactic screen with the gamma and delta quadrants.

55. EFFeX - April 23, 2009

Man I want that Star Trek D-A-C for PC, I don’t have an XBox!

56. sebimeyer - April 23, 2009

Another game in a long line of games that have little to do with the spirit of Star Trek other than the name on the package.

Why no more story driven games like the awesome Final Unity or Judgement Rites?

57. Devon - April 23, 2009

“Why no more story driven games like the awesome Final Unity or Judgement Rites?”

Yeah how well did those do?

Exactly. I’m serious, I’m glad some of you aren’t game developers because you’d complete miss the point of a VIDEO GAME.

58. BlueWaterDreamer - April 23, 2009

What’s with the white Andorian?

59. rangerone314 - April 23, 2009

Botf was easy, had entire fleet of Defiants to deal with the Borg. It was funny though… Ordered every single Defiant to fire and basically wiped out cube with one volley, so it can be done.

IMHO, Botf had weakness in terms of poor structures (in Civilization series of games, by comparison, the buidings were better defined and the tech tree was also better) although I did like acting out battles.

I should finish the game I started programming a few years back where it is like Civ III at the world level, and uses resources more like Imperialism II, and units fight big battles like Panzer General II.

60. I am not Herbert - April 23, 2009

Looks like a fun little Trek shooter! (it’s not a simulation guys… jeez!!)

Glad there will be a PC version! I’ll be downloading… =)

I don’t have one yet, but it would be cool if there was an iPhone/iTouch version… or maybe an Android version?

I got Star Trek: Conquest for PS2 a while back, couldn’t control the ships worth a damn; hopefully this will be better.

…and I like the fact that they will be adding content down the road…

61. J W Wright - April 23, 2009

nothing like flames shooting out of warp propulsion nacelles, especially at sub-light velocities…

congrats, trek has now been thoroughly cheapened and dumbed down for mass consumption.

innit swell?

62. pinky - April 23, 2009

I definitely enjoyed the ST point-and-click adventure games, like Judgment Rites and ST: 25th Anniversary, too. Those had space battles, but also thinking and dealing with civilizations through problem solving on the planets’ surfaces. Point-and-click adventures used to be Seirra and Lucas Arts’ tentpole games! Then they went the way of the dinosaur when Doom and Quake and things like that started taking over. I love those games too, I mean ST: Elite Force was fun :)

But maybe ST game developers might want to try going back to adventure games. The few foreign point-and-click adventures that are made nowadays actually do quite well, like The Longest Journey or Syberia. I would love to see a serious, thoughtful, interesting Space Quest — called Star Trek. Space Quest: The Next Mutation, was one of my favorite games of all time! haha…

Staying true to the spirit of ST isn’t hard, it just takes a little thought and some creativity. Making an arcade shoot-em-up (which, no #15, is not like Balance of Terror or TWOK) is a money grab. And I hope it works so they can develop a King’s Quest 6 for Star Trek.

63. The Last Maquis - April 23, 2009

#13. thebiggfrogg and others My Spiel is With DAC game and how it’s advertised, STO actually is the Better concept because of the Balance of Exploration, co-op, and Battles. I don’t Online Game at all, but I can Respect that More as a game with the name Star Trek In it.

Further….Yeah I know Phasers and Torpedoes are Cool n’ stuff.

64. DGill - April 23, 2009

#57

“I’m glad some of you aren’t game developers because you’d complete miss the point of a VIDEO GAME.”

I have to disagree with you. While it is true that video games should be about playability first and foremost, I know a lot of gamers who prefer their movie tie-in games to be a little more sophisticated. Narrative is, in fact, important nowadays because just about every action game has one (Gears of War, Halo, even older games had a decent narrative). It certainly doesn’t satisfy my tastes, and I like shoot-em-up games. On the surface, I just think this is a piss-poor action game that’s been rushed out to meet the gaming margin of Paramount’s marketing blitzkrieg. Perfectly understandable, but I expected a little more effort like a story and most importantly, different ship designs. They could’ve easily lifted a lot of ship designs from the film, like the Kelvin and a few others that were spotted in the spacedock photo and implement them into the gameplay. Why didn’t they do it? Because the developers rushed it.

65. Rekkert - April 23, 2009

The only thing I don’t like about DAC is that the others federation ships don’t look like federation ships. Several diferent ships appear on the movie (as shown by the Federation dossier), so, why didn’t they just use those desings?

66. CarlG - April 23, 2009

DAC looks like a fun little shoot em up for 10 bucks.

Anyone remember the old Star Trek 25th anniversary game for PC? The point-and-click adventure game? Good times, and pretty thoughtful, too, for a Trek game.

My favourite of all time is still Starfleet Command, the ultr-complicated (yet deviously fun) granddaddy of DAC. What a game. :)

67. pinky - April 24, 2009

#66 -
Yeah. Long live adventure games! But 10 bucks for D-A-C? Nah. Go to a bargain bin and pick up “The Next Mutation” for 5 bucks — start as a cadet, cheat through the bridge simulator like Kirk, and then become Captain of your own starship as you aid an android in discovering her humanity, travel to diverse worlds, and investigate to cure a biological toxin that threatens all of humanity…. whew, not Star Trek – but SO much more of a star trek than this thing. Absolutely worth it.

68. tooboldlygo - April 24, 2009

The game title must stand for:
DeathMatch, Assault and Conquest

69. USS TRINOMA NCC-0278 - April 24, 2009

It simply means Divide And Conquer.

70. Lore - April 25, 2009

#52 This is how business is done in ST09. How can you have an xbox live account if you don’t give a cc online? BTW if you haven’t tried online play then your really depriving yourself.

71. Crazy Guy - May 1, 2009

Whoa! That looks almost like that Flash Trek series on the Internet, but in 3-D.

I thought there wasn’t supposed to be any game based on the film though…not that I’m knocking this new revelation.