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Categories: Review
Tags: ds, star trek, strategy
Surprised by a “phantom ship,” the USS Sheridan lies adrift in an asteroid field. Her warp core is ready to breach, but if I lower my shields to beam her crew over, I’m leaving my ship open for attack. As I do the honorable thing, a Romulan ship decloaks behind me, lighting up my starboard side. I raise shields, but I’ve lost a nacelle. The Sheridan explodes and I hope that the survivors are aboard as my crippled ship engages the Romulan.
Tactical Assault is the second of Bethesda’s Star Trek troika (Ah Troika, remember them?), leading up to the much hyped Star Trek: Legacy. Other than sharing the same source material, this handheld entry bears no resemblance to last month’s Encounters. Where Encounters was arcade-y, Tactical Assault lives up to its name. The game takes a brains-over-brawn approach, but forcing the player to use strategy doesn’t water down the action.
Tactical Assault is a series of gripping knife fights. There wasn’t a single mission that didn’t have me on the edge of the couch, reacting verbally to such an extent that the ESRB should consider re-rating this game.
>Get ready for an old Klingon proverb.Set in a loosely described TOS movie era, the game’s story follows a young captain working his way through Starfleet’s ship registry during a period of Klingon hostilities. Side missions find the player investigating pirate attacks, escorting ambassadors, and responding to distress calls.
The game requires a balance between offense and defense. Phasers and photon torpedoes are mounted to hardpoints and have limited firing arcs. Six shield segments protect the hull and it takes deft maneuvering to hammer an opponent’s shield into oblivion while protecting yours. Your opponents will be using the same tactics on you, making Tactical Assault refreshingly challenging.
Overpowering weapons will bring down enemies faster, but the ship’s emergency power supply can also be used to recharge shields (for the Federation) or engage the cloaking device (for Klingons). Like Starfleet Command (and its ancestor Star Fleet Battles), energy is key to survival. Once you’ve upgraded your ship, you can place more demands on the ship’s battery: performing high-energy turns, overloading the weapons system, and improving ship speed and handling.
While the game is combat-based (Qapla’), Tactical Assault rewards players for remembering to open hailing frequencies and use the sensors. Finding alternate solutions and completing bonus objectives improves your mission rating and earns more points for upgrading ship’s systems. Even upping your ship’s alert to yellow or red affects other characters’ reactions to your ship.
This won’t end well.The game works great on the DS and isn’t dependent on the stylus. Except for over-pixelated planets, the graphics are respectable (damage effects are incredible). In-game audio is spot-on and the score is appropriately stirring and haunting.
The game has a few modes of play. After completing the Federation campaign, the Klingon campaign opens up–thankfully it’s not just the Federation campaign with a different skin. The DS version supports multi-card play for two players and has three multiplayer modes. You can also jump into a four-ship skirmish using Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Gorn ships you’ve unlocked.