The year was 2000. A dark time after the massive, worldwide computer failure that led to the downfall of civilization in which roving gangs of IT Technicians would assault old women with limp-wristed bitchslaps and Styrofoam bat’leths. A desolate time before iPods and Windows Me was the operating system of choice.

However, in this barbaric and unforgiving world, there was a glimmer of hope. A shining beacon for which those seeking refuge could turn to for guidance, inspiration and loving warmth. I am, of course, speaking of the Sony PlayStation:

…Jesus I am such a fanboy.

Anyways one of my favorite games on the ol’ gray box was Colony Wars. For those of you who haven’t played Colony Wars, it played a lot like a console version of Freespace. For those of you who have never played Freespace, it plays a lot like Descent. For those of you who have never played Descent… well, get off my website. Now.

GIT!

Now that those blasphemers are gone, let’s talk Trek. Star Trek Invasion takes place in 2377, one year after the end of the Dominion War and ten years before Romulus asplodes and reboots the franchise. The Borg (oh, gee, who’d a thunk?) is detected in the Titan system, heading towards the Klingon border. Starfleet, knowing that the Klingons are too freakin’ boneheaded to wipe their own ridges let alone hold off a Borg invasion, mobilizes the Federation version of an aircraft carrier, the USS Typhon, which is commanded by Starfleet’s pet Klingon, Lieutenant Commander Worf:

About a third of the way into the game, as you’re dolin’ out the harshness to the Borg and, to a lesser extent, the Romulans, a new race of aliens arrive on the scene: the Kam’Jahtae. The Kam’Jahtae (or “Cujo” the the remainder of this piece) are descendants of an race of aliens known as Hur’q, ancient enemies of the Klingon Empire and a race so unbelievably badass that even the Borg are like “aww, snap son!” and mysteriously disappear about 2/3rds into the game. So, cut off from reinforcements and with the Klingons trying to figure out how to get their digits out of one of those Chinese finger traps, the responsibility of saving the entire galaxy, once more, falls to you.

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the galaxy?

Despite the cliché of “you must save the universe”, the story is actually quite engaging and works to keep you interested throughout the long-but-not-too-long campaign.

As I alluded to, Star Trek Invasion plays a lot like Colony Wars. That is to say that it is, straight-up, a fast-paced space combat game. Many of the levels have a basic mission structure that boils down to you killing a couple waves of enemies, watching a brief in-game cutscene, killing a couple more waves of enemies and watching another in-game cutscene. Every few stages you’ll also get what can only be described as a boss fight where you, in your dinky little fighter, will go up against a Romulan Warbird or flying inside of a Borg Cube.

That’s right, at one point in the game you have to fly inside of a Borg Cube to steal it’s transwarp coil. Not only is this a necessary mission in order to save your ship, the Typhon, but it works as a steadfast reminder of this universal truth:

Star Trek Invasion does change the gameplay up from time to time. While the majority of the missions involve you shooting just about everything that isn’t Starfleet (or, later in the game, things that even ARE Starfleet), there is at least one point in the game where you’ll be tasked with controlling a turret battery aboard the Typhon, taking down enemy fighters on what plays as a rail shooter. It’s a nice change of pace for the game and allows the player a chance to relax a bit from the incredible pain in the ass that is the rest of the game.

Oh yes, people – Star Trek Invasion is hard as hell. Even on the easiest of settings, the game doesn’t mess around. Enemy fighters are smart, employing flanking maneuvers and engaging in their own strategic battle plans. Unfortunately, because the game was made in 2000, the enemies do at times show the uncanny ability to know exactly which ship you’re piloting and come down on you with the Star Trek equivalent of the power of Mjöllnir. Thankfully your squadmates are somewhat compitent and help keep the heat off of you long enough for you to rain hellfire down on the many command ships, which are in and of themselves real bastards to take down.

While you don’t face command ships on every stage, the ones you do fight are no joke. Hell, the first (non-training) level has you fighting a Romulan Warbird that, while certainly the weakest of the boss ships, comes crewed by the most accurate damn tactical officer in the history of forever! And of course the Warbird knows exactly which fighter you are and no matter how many of your fellow pilots are pelting its forward shields with phaser fire, the Warbird will take aim at you and only you.

While that may sound cheap now, keep in mind that we’re talking about a game from 2000. This was a time when every FPS or Action game had basic AI which more or less made you a bullet magnet. Shit, modern day games still have trouble with that weak ass trash. So yeah, it may have artificially inflated the difficulty level of the game somewhat, but back in the day we considered difficulty to be a welcome challenge, not a game-breaking flaw like pansy ass game reviewers do today.

It has been a long time since we’ve had a truly great space combat game. Oh, sure, you had your Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series that continued on the GameCube, but those were really it. We’ve yet to see a new Descent or Freespace, the last time we saw a Wing Commander game was an abysmal Xbox LIVE outing and Star Trek: Shattered Universe, while not as bad as some reviews made it out to be, was still plenty bad (Evil Chekov? C’moooooon). So, when you think about it, Star Trek Invasion is the last bastion of a golden era of space combat games.

Star Trek Invasion was fairly popular when it was released and, therefore, is fairly easily available on eBay. Furthermore, for some inexplicable reason all PS3s can play PSOne games (while only some can play PS2 games) so you shouldn’t have too hard of a time playing it. Not only is this incredibly convenient, but it shows that even Sony knows this valuable lesson:

And with that, our month long tribute to Star Trek is complete. By now you’ve all surely seen the new movie and a few of you unfortunate bastards undoubtedly picked up Star Trek D.A.C., but hopefully y’all have taken some of our sage advice and picked up at least one of these underrated classics.

With us at E3 for the first week of June, GGYNP will be out for a few. But do not fear, it will return with an underrated SEGA Genesis gem that is the most fun you can have in five minutes.

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