The Fallen:
Trek game is more than technobabble

Software review by Adriano Manocchia

14850 Magazine > August 2001 Issue > The Fallen

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USS Defiant, the starship assigned to Deep Space 9.

The senior officers, having just been introduced to Darmungian Ping Pong, are having a merry old time, when suddenly...

"Captain! There's a big, scary ship attacking us with {techobabble} shields that our weapons can't penetrate!"

"Suggestions?"

"Let's go hide in that handy nebula over there."

"Make it so."

The senior officers meet, toss about a reference to the Prime Directive, and are about to succumb to the enemy when, in a moment of well-timed clarity, the chief engineer emerges with, "It's a long shot, but if we {technobabble} the {technobabble} to {technobabble} the {technobabble} we just might be able to break through their shields."

"Make it so."

Modifications are made, the enemy is defeated, and the crew returns to Darmingian Ping Pong and merriment.

This was the formula that guided Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Voyager (and likely will guide the forthcoming Enterprise series) through years of single-serving weekly doses of adventure. Now, before I instigate a flame war, I must point out that I am a great fan of Star Trek and do not believe this to be an inherent flaw. However, the myriad of computer games that have emerged from the Star Trek franchise have been based on these series and, more often than not, simply uninspired, rehashed first person shooters with a Trek skin attempting to appeal to a niche market.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the only series in the lot to break the mold in that the storyline was largely contiguous throughout its seven years. This allowed characters to develop more fully, plots to evolve more deeply, and cries of "soap opera!" to be spewed from devout Trekkers everywhere.

Well, this certainly was unlike any soap opera I had ever seen, and for the same reasons, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen, is unlike any Star Trek game in this genre that has come before it. More accurately, this is a third person shooter, as the game is played looking over the shoulder of your character. It is built on the Unreal Tournament game engine, but not without many enhancements.

The view over Commander Sisko's shoulder.

The Fallen features a complex, evolving plot that unfolds as you play as one of three characters from the series: Commander Benjamin Sisko, Lieutenant Commander Worf, or Major Kira Nerys. Each character has a special weapon and while the overall storyline is consistent for each, their individual missions are completely unique.

Gameplay is a good balance of puzzle solving and battle, aided by two interface enhancements: a tricorder and communicator. The tricorder allows you to scan your surrounding area and get detailed analysis of life forms, mechanical devices, and supplies. The communicator allows you to contact other characters in the game for status updates and advice, while allowing them to keep you abreast of any important events.

You acquire a variety of weapons and ammunition during your missions, as well as tools such as wrist beacons to illuminate dark areas, antitoxins, shield belts, and rebreathers to remain underwater for extended periods of time. Your adversaries range from carnivorous fish to Jem'Hadar soldiers to speedy, venomous airborne creatures. Between missions, you return to Deep Space 9 where you are free to walk around the command center, promenade, shops, and offices, where personnel you encounter will brief you on your next mission and sometimes engage you in trivial banter. A special facial animation system enables real time lip-synching with the recorded voices. Occasionally the technobabble within the game seems overly contrived, but for the most part is not excessive. The voices of the characters in the game are performed by the actors from the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 television series, with some obvious exceptions, most notably Avery Brooks as Commander Sisko. While his replacement does a fine job, he does not have Brooks's distinctive voice and detracts from the overall authenticity of the game.

The game's graphics are excellent and great care was obviously taken in recreating the virtual Deep Space 9, as well as all the other environments. As a great fan of the series I found it quite thrilling to simply explore the station at my leisure. All the cinematic interludes are rendered in real time, but still look very good. Occasionally throughout the game, some of the more expansive and complex areas cause a noticeable drop in frame rate, but this never impairs gameplay. There are also some bugs in the maps scattered about the game, such as invisible ledges and small areas that are "out of bounds" causing graphical distortion, but these are often difficult to find and usually far from the beaten path. As for the big picture, The Fallen is very stable and did not crash once during testing.

Major Kira takes out a bad guy.

Since the storylines of each of the characters you can play are intertwined, it would be nice to be have the opportunity to choose who you would like to be for each stage, or be able to play all three characters' missions before the next stage is reached. Unfortunately, this cannot be done without manually progressing through three separate games. My biggest complaint about The Fallen is the music. It is thoroughly uninspired, poorly synthesized, and repetitious. In light of the considerable time this game spent in development and the great pains taken to make such a fine product, this obvious shortcoming is all the more apparent.

Nevertheless, it is a fine product. The plot and characters are well developed and true to the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 television series. The gameplay is an entertaining blend of puzzles and battle, with splendid visuals throughout, and a notable lack of excessive gore. Minimum requirements are a Pentium II 233 or PowerMac G3 with 64 MB of RAM,150 MB of hard disk space, and a 4x CD-ROM drive, but to be fully appreciated a faster processor and hardware 3D graphics acceleration should be used. The Windows version of the game has been available since December 2000 and can be found for as little as $14.95, while the Macintosh version has just reached store shelves and retails for $29.95, a bargain in either case.

If you are a fan of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, this game is a must for your library. If you are a fan of first person shooters, this game is a welcome departure that should keep you immersed for hours. In all, it is a pleasant evolution of a game style that has become almost ubiquitous in the gaming world and I, for one, hope more game developers take a long, hard look at it and, well, "make it so."

Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound: 6
Difficulty: 6

Overall: 7

Pros: Plot, graphics, gameplay, ability to be different characters
Cons: Music, inability to be different characters without starting a separate game

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14850 Magazine > August 2001 Issue > The Fallen