Star Trek: Encounters

This game seems to have been completely overlooked by IGN, I don't know if the review staff even LOOKED at it, or if they just copied what they saw in other gaming review magazines, but my review is almost the polar opposite of IGN's. I think traditional gamers are going to be dissapointed by this game, due to the non-standard action that most would consider boring. IE: Chasing the warp trails, scanning for cloaked mines, towing disabled and enemy ships, tractoring powerups when engines are offline, all things your standard gamer would feel are boring, but to a trek fan? These are the bread and butter of trek. Yeah so the ships don't take half an hour to turn. Then again anyone ever watched the opening to TNG? The Enterprise-D makes a pretty much on-a-dime whiparound and goes into warp.

I found that the sensor trails, the cloaked mines, stealing enemy ships, these are at the heart of what it is to be trek. In fact I question the ability of the author who originally wrote this reivew, as he can in the same review state that there are levels made directly from episodes of the series, and a complete lack of trek -- One precludes the other. If Encounters was taken from the series', then it IS trek. It just doesn't appeal to gamers.

Are the controls a little clunky? Yes. But think about it... you're controlling a starship that takes between 56 (Enterprise NX-01) people to man, up to over a thousand (Enterprise D and E) and you're controlling it as a single person... even the minute to minute controls require someone to operate sensors, helm, tactical, and and sciences. To operate some of the other controls in the game, you'd need a transporter chief, a team of people to load torpedoes and mines in the armory, and this is all being done with the admittedly limited amount of control possible using the PS2 controller.

Is the sound somewhat repetitive? Sure. But so was the sound in Trek. Moreover... the same music score is found in Star Trek: Legacy (X360) and yet that game got a much higher score for sounds.

There are recurring concepts in the game, but they grow more and more complex. For instance in the beginning you're asked to blow up radioactive asteroids, later you have to do it again, but this time you have to do it as a romulan warbird is flying close enough so you can bring down it's shields with them. Then again later you have to destroy them while romulans are decloaking and attacking you, and then get out of the asteroid field to call Starfleet. It may repeat, but it repeats and becomes more complicated.

Overall I think if the original reviewer played the game, then he wrote the review in his sleep. And I am apparently not the only one.

Best $15 I've ever spent.
http://rr.ps2.ign.com/rrview/ps2/star_trek_encounters/822227/111401/