Note: I played this obvious co-op focused game by myself in single player so take that into account when I start complaining about things.

As a fan of 2 out of 3 of the JJ Abrams produced Star Trek films, I had at least a few expectations going into this. I already knew about the bad review scores it received on launch, but I always try to stay open minded when playing something for myself. There's a good amount of fleshing out of the world found in this game, with bringing the Gorn back, sneaking a hidden Tribble into each level, and in a few levels sprinkling audio logs from your crewmates around that give a bit of insight into what they think of Kirk, the current situation, or vague events from the first movie.

Bad news though, this game was pretty unbearable to get through. While it's nice hearing the entire cast from the films return, you can tell some of them are trying more than others with their performances, notably Anton Yelchin, Karl Urbans, and for the most part Chris Pine (though he certainly has a fair bit of flat delivery here and there.)

The combat was not enjoyable at all. I knew I was in trouble when the first boss of the game puts you in a tight room with an enemy who can stun lock you into death with 2 hits, and a brain dead AI who just stands there and takes the hit right at the start of the fight. At a certain point after I saved up enough experience, of which they give you very little at the start, I was able to unlock a stun upgrade that took out just about every enemy in one shot just so I could get around really engaging with the combat, and making stealth sections immensely easier. None of the guns felt very good outside of the main phaser with the necessary upgrades of rapid fire and less heat consumption.

There were a few set pieces that had me impressed, mostly because of the reused OST from the films elevating moments, especially the gliding, falling, and flying sequences. There's also a single section where you do space combat and when it isn't being confusing because projectiles spawn in really close to you, it's pretty cool.

My biggest problem with the game is how buggy it is though. I mentioned that my partner AI was brain dead, but so are a lot of just NPCs. The amount of times progression was halted because someone was stuck walking in circles and I had to reset to fix them, or I'd be downed from enemy fire and Spock just wouldn't come to me because his pathing broke or an enemy was in the way. Even the flying sections weren't free of bugs, with a good number of objects just killing me instantly despite looking like I'm fully evading them. Replaying those moments definitely ruined some of the "epic" feel they were supposed to give off.

I did not enjoy this one. Not one bit.

Based on the Kelvin Timeline introduced in the 2009 “reboot” film, this is a new adventure starring the crew of the films, with the film’s actors providing voice work. The game is focused on co-op, letting you and a friend play as Kirk and Spock (although you can play singleplayer with the computer handling the other character).

The game is very clearly unfinished, it’s quite buggy with very wonky animations. Luckily, my latest playthrough I only encountered a couple of times where the glitches caused Spock to die, most of it was just odd visual bugs, such as within the first minute where Kirk span around in a circle and hovered up above the bridge.

Despite this clunkiness, I can’t bring myself to hate this game, I really enjoy it a lot. The dialogue between Kirk and Spock keep things moving and the game tries to keep itself fresh with different environments (they do a great job with the “giant industrial brewery” style of the Enterprise interior) and action pieces like skydiving. The combat is quite simple, but entertaining, with a focus on stealth and finding hidden tunnels and vents to sneak into positions to hack turrets.

The plot follows an attack on New Vulcan, where Gorn from another alternate universe have invaded to take a powerful device the Vulcans were working on. These Gorn are very different and you’ll encounter different types with strength and abilities to provide variety of enemies. The Gorn also have a virus that can turn your own crew against you, and the game heavily suggests stunning them instead of killing them – various sections have bonus objectives such as non-lethal or stealth to gain extra XP.

Shooting is a fairly generic cover shooter. I found myself using stun (which only makes enemies dizzy) then punching them to knock them out. There are various weapons to try, but the trusty phaser is usually enough. Some sections encourage stealth, but this is always optional. There are turrets, cameras and doors to hack using simple minigames, and is always risky trying in combat.

While this Star Trek game doesn’t really excel at any particular thing, it’s still a very enjoyable romp with a good story and fun action.

Okay so hear me out: this game is the bones of what could have been a pretty good video game. I'm not saying the game itself is good, because it absolutely feels like the developers got like 2/3 of the way through and the bosses told them to just ship it. I'm just saying it had the potential to be pretty solid and the biggest problem is just that it doesn't seem finished.

I actually enjoyed the storyline. Yeah, it doesn't 100% line up with canon, but that aside, it was a fun little romp and I got all the Kirk and Spock action I wanted from this. The actors did the voice acting, so it sounds quite good, and the music is pretty nice too.

The problems lie in the overall polish (both artwork and basic game elements). The art looks probably worse than average for its time, like they had put together basic models but hadn't gone back and properly touched them up yet. The game controls can be very janky, especially around jumping, and sneaking challenges were often nigh impossible to complete. I often had to just drop out and let my wife finish the level on her own (or vice versa) so we didn't have to do the same janky jumping puzzle twice to get through the area.

I personally didn't mind the way they handled upgrades, which were just to phasers (and finding better guns) rather than to characters. This was actually imo somewhat in the spirit of Star Trek, especially the ability to stun people instead of just killing them. However...the biggest problem was that they never implemented a system to save the second player. This is another reason I theorize the game was just forcibly shipped before the developers could actually do all the things they wanted - the game has a two player mode (which all things considered, I liked) but the second player cannot save their phaser upgrades. This means that you either commit to playing the whole thing in one go, or you just assume one person will be not that amazing - the only saving grace is that the game is tuned that this does not make it impossible to beat, just annoying.

I do want to say though: F the swimming level. I'm not sure if they purposely did the fisheye view for Spock but it was almost impossible to finish

Finally, I want to shout out the achievement that you get for dying as Spock in single player. This game had pretty decent writing that deserved a better final product than it got. If you really love Kirk/Spock action, and are not that fussed about repeating stuff a lot, this is still worth trying out. If you are not that sort of person, this game is an easy skip.