Shaun Munro reviews Star Trek: Bridge Crew…
Card-carrying Trekkies and newbies alike should find plenty to enjoy in Red Storm Entertainment’s socially-minded VR jaunt Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Without question one of the most satisfying and nuanced PSVR titles to date, its keen focus on communication-driven co-op multiplayer should ensure it enjoys a healthy online community for the foreseeable future.
If you’ve ever dreamt of commanding a starship and channeling your best Captain Kirk or Picard impression, this is absolutely the game for you. Bridge Crew allows the player to tackle one of four roles on-board the U.S.S. Aegis (though braver players can swap to the more complex Original Series Enterprise should they wish); Captain, who issues orders to the crew and is the only one who can see mission objectives; Helm, the pilot; Tactical, in charge of offense; and Engineer, responsible for resource allocation and repairs.
The game features a five-mission campaign (while also including a fantastic prologue which invokes the infamous Kobayashi Maru test) which players can tackle either solo with three AI squadmates, or preferably, online with three randoms or pals. Much like Red Storm’s recent VR hit Werewolves Within, the allure isn’t so much complex, varied gameplay as much as it is the fantastic social experience; it’s incredibly easy to slip into character, and clear spoken communication is absolutely vital in order to successfully complete missions.
Though the Move controllers are rather archaic tech, and PSVR owners will no doubt be jealous of their PC brethren being able to point with their more robust controller solutions (the game smartly has cross-platform play), the motion controls nevertheless add another fantastic layer of immersion, as you use the Moves to click panels, man thrusters and perform hilarious hand gestures during downtime. There’s nothing quite like encouraging your crew to dance the Macarena, that’s for sure. The game can also be played with the DualShock 4, but it takes a big chunk of the immersion away, so isn’t at all recommended.
It’s worth mentioning that those with little interest in multiplayer will have a decidedly more stripped-down experience, simply because the lack of human interaction makes the fairly repetitive nature of the missions that much more apparent, and the AI isn’t particularly good. As the Captain, I most often found myself simply taking over each role and performing the action rather than waiting for the CPU to play catch up. Red Storm has promised to patch in voice recognition at a later date to make commanding the AI easier, though of course, that remains to be seen.
To that end it’s hard to fully recommend the game at a AAA price point if you’re only in it for the single-player, especially as the campaign can be beaten pretty comfortably in about 3-4 hours, but if you’re craving a social VR experience, this is up there with Werewolves Within as pretty much the best that PSVR has to offer.
Sure, every multiplayer game has its idiots, but the added presence of VR typically weeds a lot of them out as it makes people feel less anonymous, and in my tests players were extremely accommodating for newbies, though at the same time it’s strongly recommended to work through the comprehensive, near-hour-long tutorial before heading online.
Though the lengthy tutorial may be daunting at first and suggest a cumbersome learning curve, it’s impressive how intuitive playing as most of the roles quickly feels; after two or three hours, most of the basic functions will feel like second nature.
The various roles are great for different player personalities and styles of play, too; the Captain of course suits more outgoing players, while the Engineer, unquestionably the most “boring” role, is great for those who don’t want to feel too much pressure. Of course, overall success will hinge entirely on the competency of your crew, though if you end up stuck with someone who’s too drunk or high to pilot the ship properly, it’s usually still a laugh at least. Simply, this game is going to be a lot of fun on weekends.
In addition to the campaign, there’s also Ongoing Voyages, a procedural mission generator which is essentially what will help keep the online community alive, and though there is a general familiarity to the objectives, the social aspect helps it feel fresh enough pretty much every time.
Though the allure of a Star Trek VR game is itself enough for most Trekkies to accept a litany of flaws, they are worth mentioning all the same. First off, calibrating Move controller tracking so that I didn’t try to reach through my leg to press console buttons took longer than it really should have, and even now, I typically need to hold the options button every so often to reset my position.
There’s a disappointing lack of in-game calibration options which would certainly make this process feel less arduous, as removing the headset in order to re-jig placement of the PlayStation camera is about as immersion-breaking as it gets. The avatar creation suite is also pretty underwhelming, coming with just a few simple presets (including a whopping three eye colours), which given the social nature of the game and the focus on other characters’ faces, feels like a majorly missed trick.
Again, for solo players it’s difficult to recommend this as a day-one purchase due to the fairly small amount of content and how inferior to the multiplayer it is, but for those keen to dive into deep space with three other VR owners, it is an absolute no-brainer.
The visuals represent some of the PSVR’s best to date – especially as you can press the Move button to get a jaw-dropping view of the ship’s exterior – and the voice acting isn’t bad either, while a ton of Trek’s famous sound effects help make the experience feel tremendously authentic. If you don’t mash the red alert button at least once when you land in the Captain’s chair in order to hear that familiar alert siren, I don’t believe you.
Like Werewolves Within, the time spent inside the headset flies by like nobody’s business thanks to some simple but entertainingly tacile gameplay mechanics and the hilarious banter that will unavoidably transpire with teammates. It could be tightened up in a few areas, yes, but the overall experience is so ludicrously entertaining, even in long play sessions, that one hopes and suspects the multiplayer community will sustain for the long haul.
It would probably be slightly overzealous to call Star Trek: Bridge Crew PSVR’s killer app, but it’s nevertheless a magnificent, if flawed, experience that expertly melds resource management mechanics with top-notch social multiplayer. And perhaps best of all, you needn’t be an unapologetic Trek nerd to get one Hell of a kick out of it (but it definitely helps).
Pros:
+ Some of PSVR’s best multiplayer to date
+ Trekkies will love it
+ Procedurally-generated levels keep replay value high
+ Impressive visuals and sound
Cons:
– Single-player becomes repetitive quickly
– Tracking can be fiddly
– Poor character customisation
Rating: 8.5/10
Reviewed for PS4 (also available on PC)
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
