Star Trek: Bridge Crew

Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a spaceflight simulator game created mainly for virtual reality headsets. It was developed by Red Storm, owned by Ubisoft, the creators of e.g. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.

Plot

As evident from the title, the game is a licensed Star Trek production and is set in the cinematic universe based on the series, started by the 2009 movie of the same name, directed by J. J. Abrams.

During the story campaign, you explore a previously unknown region of the galaxy, known as the Trench, in search for a new home for the Vulcan race. There are various missions available to complete, starting with reconnaissance, through rescue missions, to battles with enemy ships. Many of them were designed manually, while other are generated procedurally.

Mechanics

Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a spaceflight simulator, entirely designed with a co-op mode for four players. Each players becomes a different member of the ship's crew. The playable positions are: Captain, Helmsman, Engineer, and Tactical Officer. If there are less than four players, the leftover positions are taken over by the AI.

Regardless of your chosen position, you perform your duties by using the ship's equipment in the virtual world—the traditional interface has been kept to minimum, so that you can forget it's only a game and feel like you really are onboard a spaceship.

Your duties vary with your position. For example, the Captain sees the screens informing them about the state of various elements of the ship, and the system allowing for issuing commands to the rest of the crew. The Engineer uses a virtual interface to manipulate the energy supplied to particular systems, such as the ship's shields, engine and weapons. The Helmsman uses a set navigational maps and windows to set the ship's course, and the Tactical Officer decides on when to take aim and which weapons to use.

Technical aspects

Star Trek: Bridge Crew features attractive 3D visuals, and the developers put a lot of effort to recreate the stylistics of the game's movie predecessor. The game requires VR headgear to run.

Last updated on 21 October 2016