Star Trek: Resurgence Review
Jeremy Carsten, USS Battle Born. 

Ok – Nerve really done a game review before, but this one I felt kinda compelled. Maybe the <redacted> made me do it… 

First, this is more of a video Novel than a game. There are game elements, but the whole thing is really on some tight rails. Oddly… that’s ok. More than any other such ‘game’ that’s done the same, none of it felt wrong. You make choices along the way, and I am not sure how much each would move the overall story very much… but it was a great story. I felt that I should choose the most ‘Starfleet’ answer most of the time, and even a few times something more ‘true’ to that character. 

You play as two characters – one the XO, and another a petty officer (yes, enlisted folks are in this game… a lot!). Both have character development, and defining moments, and both are critical to the overall story. The game references and links serval Star Trek episodes, and feels to be a real part of that post TNG universe. It fits, and is fun. 

It’s also very accessible. None of the controls are hard, and if there’s anything you fail at – you just retry until you get it…or go ‘retry in story mode’. I had to do this a few times because… well it’s not a perfect game by any means. 

Engineering tasks were fun, but it does literally tell you what buttons to press and when. That isn’t so bad. The phaser battles (and there will be phaser battles…) are the worst part of the game. Aiming is clunky, and it feels like they did that on purpose to make it difficult. Bouncing around in the action is somewhat arbitrary – only one or two ‘right ways’ to do a thing – else you go hit that story mode. Honestly, the phaser battles are the worst part of the game. Everything else is forgivable, from a play style/mechanic point of view. 

Given how on the rails the fights are, and the overall story could only have maybe 2-3 logical conclusions (from what I can figure… I have only played through once), I’m not sure how re-playable this game is. Again, it’s more like a story that took me about 6+ hours to play through and enjoy than a game with awesome mechanics that I want to continue again and again. 

A cool end detail is the QR code/alphanumeric code you get at the end. If you register with Epic Games from there https://www.startrek-resurgence.com/ (they are the same username/password, and the crap thing is, you HAVE to log into epic games to even play… booo), then you can review your choices and relationships – and see how you compared to others (percentages). You get three game slots, so I am sure many folks will try it out at least that many times. 

This really felt like a great episode, or even movie. The characters were real, and compelling. The graphics/visuals were mostly great (you could tell when 2ndary and 3rd order characters didn’t get as much time and attention to detail as the main ones), the sound and music were great and very Trek. Overall… a great story, and fantastic even for non-gamers to enjoy. Just don’t go in thinking this is the next Elite Force successor or anything. You will not be enjoying massive amounts of pew-pew time behind a phaser.