Star Trek: Shattered Universe

This game is a fun shooter with a great Star Trek story around it. It starts out with an accident that sends your ship, with Capt. Sulu at the helm, into the mirror universe (introduced in the episode where Spock had a goatee.) The rest of the game is basically about your efforts to get back to the "normal" universe. Right off the bat, the one good thing about this setting is that you get to go up against all the federation ships, since the federation is your enemy in the mirror universe! You ultimately have to make friends with the Klingons and the Romulans who'll in turn help you to get back to the "normal" universe. The story includes a lot of references to the original series, so I really enjoyed it.

As for the graphics, all the ships in the game look exactly like I remember them from the show and the scale is dead-on accurate. The backgrounds are nicely done, not just dull black space, but a lot of nebula's, planets, and stars to add to the whole feel of the game. As for sound, the music is OK, but what I really liked was playing the game on my surround-sound system. It's great to hear photon torpedoes coming at you from behind!

Where the game falters a bit is in the physics, which are very rudimentary (you pretty much just bounce of other ships) but for me it didn't distract much from the game. The controls are also standard space-combat fare.


Has Classic Trek Been Forgotten?   January 21, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I should have waited for reviews from people who've actually PLAYED the game to show up before I spent money on it. I was hoping for something like Interplay's "Starfleet Command" series, which was only okay to begin with. This is nothing more than your average "fly a fighter ship around, blow up other fighters and something really big" game (Think: any of the last 3 or 4 Star Wars games). However, the game is unnecessarily difficult--navigation and aiming are the pits.
Now for my rant--
Classic "Trek" has been given a bum deal ever since the movie franchise and "Next Generation" were successful. Not to take anything away from Picard & company, but the TV series that started it all has been forgotten. I'm not talking about the first 6 movies--I'm talking about the original 3-season wonder. THE TV SERIES IS CLASSIC "STAR TREK!!" Why not a game set during the time of yellow & blue velour suits, rounded warp nacelles, and Klingons without lobsters on their faces? Even the "Enterprise" series foreshadows things to come in the movies and spinoff series while bypassing the original. George Takei should have been given an "Excelsior" series instead. Now THAT would have been a hit.
This latest Star Trek game is just another gut punch to THE Star Trek TV series. Classic "Star Trek" deserves better.