tar Trek: Deep Space Nine is the stepchild of the Star
Trek universe. The series without a ship, it never got the backing or
the attention that the other shows and movies in the franchise did, which
is a shame. By the end, DS9 was doing episodes that were as good as
anything ever done in the ST universe. This paradigm continues into
gaming, where all the other shows and movies have received copious
interactive installments, but DS9 has been mostly ignored. Now that
DS9 has a game, however, it is as good as anything that has been done
with the ST background.
Built on the Unreal Tournament engine, Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine--The Fallen is an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter where
player take the role of Captain Sisko, Major Kira, or Commander
Worf. Each character has his or her own set of levels and plots to unravel, so
Fallen is actually three games. Each ends at approximately the same
place, so players don't have to play all three characters to
"solve" the game, but having solved it one way, they can go back
and play it twice more. For example, if the player uses Sisko, at one point
he will contact Kira for information. If the player then plays Kira, they
play out Kira getting that information. And they will contact Sisko and get
the information that they had previously played him getting.
All the series favorites are in the game. Jadzia Dax is alive and well,
and the rest of the bridge crew make cameos, interacting with the player's
character either over the comlinks or in person. All the villains are also
there--the Cardassians, the Dominion, the Pah-wraiths and the Jem'Hadar.
There is also a new race, the Grigari. All of them are chasing a lost Orb
of the Prophets, although it takes the DS9 crew some time to know
this.
DS9 gets the game it deserves
The central feature of Fallen is the tricorder. It is both the
player's hint book and the character's radar screen. As long as the
character has the tricorder deployed, its readout shows in the upper right
corner of the screen. Points of interest show as various colored dots.
Once the tricorder is aimed directly at a dot, further analysis can be done
to assess what it is. This almost always plays into the plot. Card readers
can be scanned to see what sort of cards are needed. Enemies can be scanned
to see what phaser modulation setting is needed to shoot through
their shields. Items, people and ships can be scanned to get data to the
bridge crew that comes back later in the plot. And all these scans can be
done through walls, floors and ceilings. In fact, the tricorder switches
between a 2-D and 3-D view, so players can tell if the button they are homing
in on is on the same floor with them.
There are only two drawbacks to the tricorder. One is that the
characters have to put it away to draw their weapons. If the character
is using a one-handed phaser, the game won't let them have the tricorder in
one hand and the phaser in the other. The second drawback is that the
tricorder is not reliable for spotting enemies. This is a problem that
haunts nearly all shooter games. It is frustrating when enemies appear out of thin air; it is maddening
when there's not even a blip on the tricorder.
Sure, some of the enemies are wearing forms of cloaking technology, but not
all of them.
There is a mix of puzzle-solving and shooting in Fallen. Most of the puzzles can be solved by rugged
determination to explore every nook of the level until the character finds
the necessary card. What makes that rugged exploration dangerous and
challenging is all the aliens running around with guns. The characters have
the full assortment of Unreal weapons to fight these creatures with,
and the game includes an auto-aim feature. Players can adjust the sensitivity of its
target-locking feature. One point to keep in mind is that the combat engine tracks in which
hand characters carry their weapons. Thus a Cardassian, obscured by a
wall, will shoot Worf, scoring damage. Worf will return fire and have his
blast deflected by the wall because his hand is still behind it.
As I was demonstrating Fallen to my wife (a big DS9 fan),
her first comment was, "Am I going to have to stare at Kira's butt the
whole time?" I offered to switch to Sisko or Worf, but she
agreed to simply endure. Still, be warned. Despite the fact that their
faces are on the cover and in the "Pick a Character Menu", because
of its over-the-shoulder interface, you will be spending most of your time
watching the characters' butts. Of course, judging by the sales of Tomb
Raider, that won't bother players.
