Star Trek and Telltale style adventure games seem like a heavenly combination. The two fit together perfectly. Star Trek’s best and most beloved stories are about dialogue. It’s not just about two characters having a conversation, it’s about how people relate to each other and the world around them. It’s about the choices we make when faced with difficult decisions, how we learn from past mistakes, and the strength that comes from bringing diverse peoples and cultures together. Doing all this in a video game can be difficult. Video games are usually too busy firing phasers and torpedoes to get many words edgewise. Star Trek: Resurgence’s dialogue-heavy approach doesn’t always work, but it never loses sight of Star Trek’s charm. Star Trek. And when the developers at Dramatic Labs catch that signal, they nail the series’ appeal while delivering a gripping story full of memorable characters.
Resurgence follows the crew of the USS Resolute and is set several years after the conclusion of Star Trek: Nemesis (the last Next Generation movie). In this story, the player can control his two instantly likable characters. Jarrah Rydek, a humble but capable academy graduate, has been recruited as the ship’s new co-pilot. And Carter Diaz, a charming, funny, adventure-hungry engineer who used his incredible talents to skip the academy and join the galaxy.
Dramatic Labs soon establishes some conflicts. The crew sees Jara as an outsider in a job that doesn’t pay. Captain Solano, captain of the Resolute, is desperate to reclaim his legacy after the accident, and hopes that Hara will help him do so, even if it means breaking a few rules here and there. Meanwhile, Carter is part of an overworked and understaffed engineering team, managing his seemingly impossible-to-like Vulcan boss, friendships with other members of the crew, and his own personal ambitions. while responsible for keeping Resolute up and running. .
“
Then there is the ship itself. The Resolute is a science vessel, and her first mission on her return is to negotiate a settlement between her two alien races, the Aridians and the Fireflies, who are vying for ownership of a valuable dilithium mine. It may sound grandiose at once, but the decision to frontload most of the plot pays off. I was immediately enamored with Jarra and Carter’s lives and the pressure they’re under to balance so many things while staying true to their mission. There are also some great moments later in the story where some of these issues come to the fore at the same time, but it works because Dramatic Labs thinks about who the characters are and what they want. and they face challenges that they face both personally and professionally.
And it’s still only the start time. Things get more complicated in his next 11 hours or so. Dramatic Labs spins a lot of the dishes here, but they manage to keep almost all of them from tipping over or cracking. You don’t need to know much about Star Trek, but obviously knowing the difference between, say, the Centaur-class and Miranda-class ships will help you understand certain things and characters better.
“
Depending on the situation, the point of view effectively oscillates between Jarrah and Carter. Sometimes that means giving orders from the bridge or directing the away team. They may also reroute power to critical systems, or perform spacewalks to repair the Resolute. This will give everyone on board a better understanding of what risks they are exposed to. The problem applies to more than just people on the bridge. – and make the scenario more exciting. Jarrah and Carter rarely interact directly, but they both play important roles in the story, and Dramatic Lab does a good job of showing how one’s decisions affect the other. increase. In an early scene, Carter is out on the hull repairing critical systems, while Jarrah is on the bridge. How well you do as Carter will affect what happens to the ship, but your decisions as Jara will affect Carter if something goes wrong.
Since we are using a timer, these selections also need to be made quickly. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’s slow, but you have to respond. Or not responding, but choosing not to decide is itself a choice. I wasn’t rushed at key moments, but I knew I had to be decisive. And so did the characters I was manipulating. The timer was quick enough to get me up and thinking, but not so overwhelming that it paralyzed me with indecision. Even better, I felt like I understood Jarra and Carter better because I had the time to work through the issues as much as they did.
And the decisions you make not only affect the safety of your ship and other characters, but also change the way they see your character. If Hara chooses to disobey Solano’s orders, it will affect their later relationship and change the way she approaches Harano. Alienating a member of the bridge crew by being quick-witted or ignoring their suggestions repeatedly can prevent you from reaching out to them for help later at a crucial moment. . Carter’s relationships are less politically charged than Jarra’s, but the way he treats his friends, his superiors, and how he handles them under pressure can literally mean the difference between life and death. These interactions are important, and while they do little to define the relationship beyond correction, they can play a large role later in the story.
“
Many of the Dramatic Labs team have worked at Telltale before, and that’s reflected in the quality of their writing. All of Resurgence’s characters feel like real people. Each has hopes, dreams, trauma, and pain, and what they do depends on what they believe, what happened, and your choices. Whether you’re watching Carter joking around with his best friend, hanging out with Ambassador Hotari as Jara, or just chatting with Ambassador Spock, it all comes through.
Speaking of which, Pyotr Michael took over the role from the late Leonard Nimoy and perfectly recreated every aspect of Nimoy’s famously distinctive voice and intonation. There are a few other characters I don’t want to spoil, but Josh Keaton (Carter) and Krizia Bajos (Hara) are the standouts, but the entire cast is great.
It seems that the revival is also good. It’s not God of War or anything like that, but the character models, especially the faces, are beautifully animated and full of personality, and many of the late-game environments are great. There are a few issues with the walking animations and such, but I was often so blown away by how well the characters express their emotions that I almost forgot about them. And whoever it was, I enjoyed spending time with these characters and watching them grow as people.
“
One of Resurgence’s great strengths is that it’s great at making scenarios feel like there’s no right answer, or even that you’re stuck with the best-bad option. The pause menu lets you see how your decisions change your relationships, but there’s no moral meter or “Good luck, I made the right choice here!” message. A sign that suggests the correct course of action. Other characters also convey their thoughts, but that’s about it.
And those decisions can quickly get complicated. When the ship is in danger and the bridge crew presents you with two options, which side will you take? Could it be crazy enough to do so? If you needed a crew rescue but doing so could endanger the ship, would you risk everything for them? , or let them go alone? Set phasers to stun or kill? Who do you trust?
Watching these decisions unfold has been both thrilling and shocking, and my decisions often didn’t play out as I expected. There were times when I was convinced I was doing something wrong or was taking too many risks, only to find that everything was going my way. There were other times when what seemed like a solid choice was smashed spectacularly in front of me, but in retrospect, almost everything feels like a win. It feels like the events that happened during my playthrough happened because I made a choice, not because the plot called for it, or because the writer’s invisible hand got me there.
“
That said, I wish the outcome of certain choices had more impact on the story. Sometimes it feels like an important decision, but later you realize it wasn’t that important. In a game like Resurgence it’s inevitable. The story has to go on no matter what you do, but it never feels good when it happens. As an extreme example, I was sent to beam and rescue people from an impending disaster. Ultimately, I had to choose between seriously injuring her one of the crew or sacrificing the group. I decided to save the group. This decision felt terrible (in a good way) – it wasn’t a good choice – but I did what I thought was right and what the character I was playing would do. . The group leader then thanked me for my choice, but then never really showed up again, even though it made sense for them to do so. This has happened multiple times. I don’t regret my choice. They were very well set up and emotionally effective when I made them. But in hindsight, they felt like compensating for the lack of meaningful results.
Of course, all of these dialogue choices and moral dilemmas are shattered by Resurgence’s moment-to-moment action, but this is admirable. There are many variations here. Pilot shuttles, launch phasers, command resolutes from bridges, solve engineering her puzzles, scan objects with tricorders, and sneak through hostile environments. Almost all of them are fascinating and make you feel like: You should do it in a Star Trek game. I especially enjoyed the flying and shooting sections that required quick decisions. Best of all, these segments are by no means he’s a one-off, allowing him to build skills that he can later use in more difficult and stressful scenarios.
The only annoyance among them is the tricorder segment that requires you to scan objects to solve the puzzle. It’s not always obvious what needs to be scanned, so I’ve spent several minutes walking around the same room looking for the last piece of information I needed. Resurgence will attempt to help the user by beeping its tricorder when it approaches a scannable object, but it does not distinguish between scannable objects. can What gets scanned and what you already have offal Scanned. In small environments with many scannable objects, the tricorder may be beeping constantly, which is not very useful. The tricorder segment works well most of the time, but can be frustrating if you get stuck.
The PC version also has some technical issues. There are no graphics settings other than resolution, and it runs at a fixed 30 frames per second (although it was well below that when there was a lot going on on screen). revival It looks good enough that I doubt many people will notice it. My biggest problem is with the subtitles, which often don’t match the dialogue in ways that either disappear entirely, reveal information that changes my morals, or simply reveal information that is offensive. . There is a difference between telling me that many people are in danger and that the decisions I am about to make will affect the lives of over 100 people. And there’s a difference in tone when you say “give them hell!” instead of milk toast.
I’ve also come to want a chapter selection option so that I can easily go back and try different options at certain moments once I’m done with everything. Unfortunately this does not exist in Resurgence, but tracks user selections via the website (which was not available prior to release).
