Star Trek Bridge Commander

THE BAD:
Too, too short by far.

SUMMARY:
One thing hits you when you start to play this game. You realise just how much you KNOW Star Trek. You've watched the various captains commanding on the bridge of a Starship, you've seen them in action. So after the three minutes it takes for you to get used to the extremely simple interface it becomes so easy to slip into the role you almost feel like you're wearing the uniform.

The interface is very simple. Simply use the mouse to move your view around the Bridge. Look at a crewmember and click the mouse and a menu comes up related to that crewmember's post. Do you want to warp to another star system? Talk to the Helm officer. Do you want a scan of an asteroid? Talk to the Science officer.

The officers themselves are a little on the blocky side, which is the one of the only two real graphical let-down in the entire game. Compared to the "oh-my-god-I'm-really-there" Bridge sets they really do stand out, but I can forgive it.

The other rather limp graphical aspect is the starfield outside. It just looks wrong. Nothing like space, more like black with evenly distributed white dots all over. But then, who has time to look at the stars when there's a Romulan warbird decloaking?

But that's enough nitpicking, you really need to hear just how good the rest of this game looks. I can't describe the feeling I had when I first noticed that damage on enemy ships is reflected in the models. I set my phasers to manual aim, high power and I literally sliced a Cardassian warship in half and watched the two halves drift apart. The damage model has to be seen to be believed. And the feeling I got when I watched my battered ship docking at Starbase 12 and I saw the holes savaged in my saucer section was like watching a friend bleed.

The first few missions are set on a Galaxy class ship (like the Enterprise from The Next Generation series), and the bridge of that ship just feels like home to someone whose grown up with The Next Generation on TV every week. The later missions on a Sovereign class ship (like the new Enterprise from the movies) don't feel as "comfortable", but that's probably because it has only appeared in two movies so far and we haven't seen as much of it.

The damage effects on the Bridge need to be mentioned as well. On most space games you might get the occasional cracked screen on your cockpit to let you know your ship is taking damage. In Bridge Commander, sparks fly, your crew is thrown about, the Bridge shakes and broken pipes spray steam all over the place. In Bridge Commander, you KNOW your ship is about to fly apart at the seams and it really piles the pressure on.

The story opens a bit slowly, but it picks up and as it gathers momentum it gets very involving. Its tightly scripted, so the game is very linear, but its cleverly designed so that most of the time if you're acting "in character" you're going straight down the path the designers wanted you to. This makes for a great story, but it does hamper replayability somewhat. And it suffers from one of modern PC gaming's worst flaws: It is too short.

This game could have owned my life for weeks if only there was weeks of substance here. As it is, I played through the whole thing in less than a weekend. I had great fun while doing so. In fact, it was the most enjoyable story-led experience I've had for months. But there is so little of it. I hope... no, I pray that the modding community grabs this game with both hands and that custom missions start appearing soon.

But long after I've gotten bored of the same story over and over, I get the impression that I'll still be firing this game up regularly just to soak in the atmosphere of "being there". Where else, short of risking trespassing charges at Paramount Studios, can you sit in THE chair?