Deep Space Nine: The Fallen

Ah, a Star Trek game. Over the years many games based on this popular series have come and gone. Not all of these games have been award winners either. More often than not, Star Trek games seem to be a great idea in theory, but a horrible thing in practice. Oh, there have been a few exceptions down the years. Games like Star Fleet Command and the more recent Elite Force have stood out above the previous string of bad Star Trek Games. Well, now it seems as though lately the string of bad luck is ending for the ST franchise, and it definitely shows no sign of slowing down with Simon & Schuster’s latest release, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen.

I know a lot of people who used to watch Deep Space Nine and they didn’t like what they saw. I however, have always been a fan. Something about a group of people having to live together in a stationary place always piqued my interest. It’s kind of reminiscent of the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars, but it changed every week. Aside from the great cast of characters it had many good subplots written for it, and the overall plot of the show was something movies could be made out of. The Fallen does a good job of giving the storyline of DS9 a very cinematic feel, and really advances what is known about the station and its key players. Bajoran mythology is delved into on a deeper scale and all the while you get to run around solving puzzle after puzzle trying to unlock the secrets of the Pah-Wraiths.
Now you are probably asking yourself what in the heck are Pah-Wraiths. If you hadn’t watched the sixth season of DS9 you may not be familiar with what’s going on. As it happens, thousands of years ago there was a war between the Bajoran deities, The Prophets, and another highly advanced alien group who sought to place themselves as the objects of worship for Bajor. These supremely powerful entities were known as the Pah-Wraiths. After fighting their battle and losing, the Prophets banished the Wraiths to a prison like existence. The existence of the Wraiths is documented and their abilities are still well known. When the Wraiths were sent away three strange red orbs of their creation were thought to have gone with them. These orbs had the power to create wormholes in space. As with any artifact of extreme power, these orbs have surfaced again. In the years in which they were floating around, many different factions laid hands upon them. Bejoran to Cardassian and back and forth, over and over again they bounced. No significant research on them was possible, as there was little time in between the changing of hands. Now, with some semblance of order in the Bajoran sector of space, a search goes out at the behest of a Bajoran monk by the name of Obanak Keelen, to retrieve the powerful pieces of a lost puzzle. The Federation agrees to help in the task and this is where you come in. The crew of DS9 has always been tied closely to the politics and problems of Bajor. Orders are immediately put in place and the faithful crew of DS9 is called to task, to help Obanak.

The game starts off in three different ways. You can choose to play Lt. Commander Worf, Captain Benjamin Sisko, or Major Kira Nerys. Each character has a different place in which they start their adventure. Kyra begins her mission on Bejor, which is under attack by some rebel forces. Lt. Commander Worf begins his mission inside the USS Defiant, whose hull has been breached by an alien ship. His mission is to find out what is going on inside the ship and set things right. Captain Sisko starts his mission off inside a Bajoran vessel, surrounded by hostile forces, trying to rescue all the survivors and get them aboard the Defiant. Each story is intertwined with the others and gives quite a welcome relief to the straight run, jump, shoot, kill Tomb Raider type games. The different characters definitely break up any monotony that this game might have had.

Each character has basic movement functions. You can run, jump, climb, and swim much like other 3rd person action games. You also have melee fighting maneuvers with simple fists or more elaborate weapons. When you play as Commander Worf you are given access to the Klingon Bat’Leh. Other weapons in the game include a standard phaser, a phaser rifle that is powerful in third person, and can also be used with its alternate-firing mode as a sniper rifle. Use gravitic mines to give the enemy a little bit of a shake up and finish them off with a couple quick blasts from your phaser.

Unlike many other action games The Fallen doesn’t turn into a “go fetch” type game in a frustrating sense. In games like Tomb Raider or Drakan you are told to find a magical key or some sort of object to open a door to progress further on into the level. Not only that, but you are told to go find these things with only a vague impression of where they might be and what you might be facing when looking for them. In one of the coolest shows of staying faithful to Star Trek, you are given a tricorder to help you on your missions. The way the tricorder was implemented has got to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Using a tricorder you can see in advance anything that gives off a traceable signal. If an enemy is using shields and your tricorder picks up the modulation they are operating on you can adjust your phaser to fire through the shields and kill the foe. By scanning around a room with it you can find objects that are not in your view and switches to open doors that would otherwise be hidden. If I could pick my favorite piece of technology in a game for this year, the tricorder from The Fallen would be my most treasured. Other neat little gadgets are also spread throughout the game. The wrist beacon can be used as an artificial source of light, while running around in those dark corridors of a downed space ship. A respirator can be picked up to allow you to breathe in toxic environments. Another staple of Star Trek is also well replicated in this already cool game. The communicator allows you to talk to different crewmembers of the ship and get more up to date information on what is happening around you. Also included are hypospray’s and medkits, which allow you to heal yourself in between fights with alien forces.

The game takes place through multiple levels with you playing a level with each character before advancing to the next part of the story. One of the main problems with this is the storyline can become a bit convoluted. If you don’t play the game in the order of Sisko, Kira, and then Worf you might miss out on some parts or forget certain aspects of what is going on. The only way that this might have been easier to understand would have been if the game forced you to play the missions in a specific order. At the same time I’m saying this, however, it’s nice to have a choice of what order you’d like to play. If one particular mission is giving you a hard time then you can simply play another character for a break.

I can come right out and say that the visuals in this game were nothing short of stunning. I’ve played a lot of 3rd person style games like The Fallen and this is the first time I have felt as though I was running through the game with the character. Running under Glide on my Voodoo3 3000 the animations were so smooth and fluid I could hardly contain myself. Since The Fallen is rendered in a slightly modified Unreal Tournament engine I was unsure how it would look until I finally had it installed. After playing the first training mission I’ve become convinced that this is how all games of this style should look. I also want to make note of the fact that not only are the characters you play well rendered, but all the people and things you run into also look quite nice. As you continue on the game you run into different cut scenes detailing more of what is going on with the story. Since the cut scenes are done in-engine, there is no sense of the gameplay being interrupted. With all the cool visuals I want to add that not only are they cool to look at, but you also get to go to really cool locations while running around the game.

Sound in the game is handled quite well. With a pleasant Star Trek-type score in the background and the realistic sound effects from phasers and miscellaneous events, such as gas mains blowing, throughout the course of the game. One of the best aspects of the sound scheme, and I can’t stress this enough, is the voice acting. Not only did Collective Studios go out of its way to make the game look great, but they also went out and got a bunch of the actors from DS9 and put them into the game. In fact of all the DS9 crew the only 2 voices that aren’t done by the actors who played them are those of Chief O’Brien and Captain Sisko. That isn’t even that bad considering who ever they did get to fill those roles still sound very convincing to the ear.

The primary pitfalls of The Fallen aren’t all that numerous and some can be corrected easily. Initially I had some problems with more than a little bit of crashing related to my video card, and just plain windows not liking the game for some reason. After I went to the official website and downloaded a patch the crashes I encountered dropped in number. I still get the occasional blue screen of death and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. Another thing, though it didn’t greatly impact my enjoyment of the game, is the lack of a multiplayer mode. This didn’t really bother me as I see this as more of a single player game. I can see how, if given some good multiplayer code, this could really be something for those online gamers out there, but overall it didn’t affect how the game was played.

Normally I’m not a fan of Star Trek, and I can honestly say the only show that caught my interest and kept it for a while was DS9. I’m pleased to say that this rich cast of characters and section of the universe was brought to life so well. Next time I pick up a 3rd person action game I’m not going to be able to play it without measuring it to some extent to this title. If you are a Trek fan and haven’t picked up this game yet, I don’t know what is stopping you. It’s an all around feast for your eyes, ears, and gaming appetite. I smell stocking stuffer.

Written By
Dave “Werewolf” Montowski
(While not writing for this magazine Werewolf wonders why there were no wolf-like aliens in Star Trek like there were in Star Wars….curious).

Genre: Action/Adventure Release Date: Available Publisher: Simon & Schuster Developer: The Collective ESRB: Teen System Requirements : Pentium II-233 MHz 64 MB RAM 95/98, NT, 2000 Minimum install 150MB Windows Sound Card PCI Video Card