Features

Beam me up - it's Star Trek!

In the Namco booth at E3, our session host introduces himself as Tom, the Lead Designer of Star Trek at Digital Extreme. Wearing 3D glasses, we're about to see a co-op demo played by two of the game's level designers.

Paramount Pictures and Namco have joined forces to create the game that Trekkies have been waiting for. This game promises an authentic Star Trek experience and for the first time you can play as Kirk and Spock. The voice talents are all familiar as they're from the recent reboot directed by JJ Abrams, but the story is new and the enemy are the reimagined Gorn (the lizard species Kirk famously fought on the desert planet in the classic episode 'Arena').

The set-up is quite simple. The Vulcans have formed a new colony on a new planet, and when they fail to respond to messages from the ship, Spock and Kirk beam down to the planet to check it out - with the help of our own Simon Pegg as Scotty. They soon discover that the Vulcans have been poisoned and their minds corrupted, enough for them to attack their own.

Co-op mode is asymmetric (we're hearing this word a lot at E3 this year) - meaning you're not doing the same thing at the same time. You can play in a way that helps each other out and gives each of you a unique experience, and you'll also have a completely different view on screen.

What's evident even from this brief viewing is that the camaraderie between Kirk and Spock is there, as is the Star Trek style of humour we're used to. We're very much looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. So far so good.

Live long and prosper.