Star Trek: Timelines
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Hello and welcome to another episode of There Are Four Mics: A Star Trek Podcast. I am your host, Joe Heiser.
We weren’t able to get together and record an episode discussing Enterprise for this week; so we thought we’d take the opportunity to try something a little different.
The Star Trek universe is much more than just the TV shows and movies, especially with the Star Trek vacuum that was created after the end of Enterprise in 2004. So I’m talking books, graphic novels, and video games.
In this series, we’re specifically going to take a look at one of the many many Star Trek video games floating around out there.
I’m sure I won’t be inciting much debate if I suggest that most Star Trek games have traditionally seemed rather — Unremarkable.
But it’s my hope that as I sift through the titles and give each game a fair chance, I’ll uncover more than a few that do the Star Trek universe justice.
If you have recommendations going forward, please, let me know! Send us a tweet @thereare4mics or an email to [email protected]
The most recent release seems as good a place to start as any. Star Trek: Timelines. A free to play strategy game available on Android, iOS, and through Facebook.
Star Trek: Timelines was developed by Disruptor Beam and released in 2016. Disruptor Beam previously released Game of Thrones: Ascent. Another mobile and browser based free to play strategy game.
Before we get started. Free to play is a polarizing concept. The game utilizes many of the classic components of a free to play game that we’ve come to expect: special currency, rare or specialty items, set waiting times for certain aspects of gameplay, advertisements for “special offers”, etc.. And while generally I’m suspicious of titles that rely on this form of revenue, I must say I was impressed with the amount of content I got without feeling pressured to buy in to keep the good times rolling.
So if you were ready to dismiss the game based on “free-to-play” alone, I’d stick around and hear what else it has to offer.
A not so brief overview
Star Trek: Timelines wastes no energy and immediately drops you into the thick of things. Right out of the gate you adopt the role of a captain of your own starship. You’re in the middle of investigating an anomaly alongside a Romulan Warbird commanded by Captain Tomalak.
Q, with original voice acting by John de Lancie, crashes the party and warns you that Starfleet may be out of its depth with this one. As if to prove his point, several ships suddenly appear, including none other than the NCC-1701 Enterprise, commanded by a very confused Captain Kirk who is beamed to your vessel.
Tomalak takes this as some sort of ploy and you immediately enter into a space battle, something you’ll be doing a lot through the game. You’re given a taste of character abilities as you use Kirk and Spock to boost your ship’s stats, turning the battle to your advantage and allowing you to eventually destroy the Romulan Warbird.
Another Warbird decloaks, and destroys the Enterprise. Kirk is distraught, but after Q sends the Warbird to Borg space as penance, he assures Kirk that yes, while his crew are dead, there are countless other versions scattered through time.
Q further explains that the timelines and realities of the universe have become intermingled. People, planets, ships from across all times and universes are converging and vying for space. While he trusts you to take care of the warping around and starship battles, he intends to get to the bottom of this and sort it out.
You’re given a set of prologue missions to complete and then finally engage with the main story.
Now, this opening feels very much like an episode’s cold open. We’re dropped into a situation and given a mystery that needs resolving. A bunch of things happen that we don’t really understand and then we’re whisked away into the proper story to find our footing in this new and dangerous galaxy.
Gameplay
The main game is divided into different episodes, each comprised of a dozen or more missions. For instance, Episode One deals largely with the Klingons and the Augments, the followers of Khan Noonien Singh for the uninitiated.
Are you more sympathetic towards the Klingons? Side with them in conversation, complete more Klingon missions, and ultimately, support them in achieving their final aims for the episode. All of which will influence the direction and control of the region.
The entire game is divided up like this, Factions vying for power while you support one side or the other.
Each mission awards you with items and credits, which can be used in purchasing a chance for more items, characters, and ship blueprints. Ship blueprints being let you upgrade your ship to increase its stats or even build new ships.
The missions come in two flavors: Away Missions, and Starship Battles. For Away Missions you select a certain number of crew according to their listed skills and traits. You encounter a set number of challenges, each emphasizing a specific skill. For instance, if you see there will be some demand for the Medicine skill you might consider throwing in Dr. Phlox. Each challenge can be faced multiple ways, and it’s up to you to determine who has the best chance of success, or what is more in line with the kind of captain you want to be.
If you are particularly good at selecting crew members with appropriate skills and traits, that’ll work in your favor by adding a bonus to your ability to complete the challenge.
A challenge of 25 needs to be met by a crewmember whose skills will add up to 25 after the various bonuses are applied. As you use each crew member they will level up, increasing their skills and making each challenge easier. Each crew member can also be outfitted with specific items to increase these abilities.
Starship Battles are a bit different and largely take care of themselves. Your ship will automatically fire and evade, your job is to apply the bonuses your selected crew can offer. For instance, Travis Mayweather can increase your ship’s maneuverability temporarily, making it harder for the enemy to hit.
Outside of the main story there are standalone “Distress Call” missions you can complete. These operate much like the episode specific missions but don’t necessarily affect events unfolding in the galaxy.
There are a lot of elements blended into Star Trek: Timelines that I really enjoy. There’s a certain RPG aspect to it. Being able to choose your responses, enhance and upgrade your starship, leveling up your crew, and siding with one faction or the other all bring some semblance of roleplay to the game.
It’s not simply a matter of filling your crew roster and unleashing them upon each mission, there needs to be a level of strategy and reason behind your choices.
The game boasts over 330 recruitable characters at this moment. More having been added since the game’s initial launch; a trend likely to continue. Honestly, this aspect is quite fun to me. While most are variants of the same character, Jazz Musician Odo or Boxing Chakotay, for example, it’s reminiscent of collecting those Star Trek action figures that used to be released years ago.
The ability to collect all of these characters and ships is certainly dependent on how much money you’re willing to spend. The ingame currency is referred to as Dilithium, which can be bought in packs of various sizes.
You’re allotted a certain number of free chances depending on missions completed, but its obvious that if you were to rely on these free modes of resource gathering it could take you ages to get even the next level ship.
In my 5-10 hours of play, I haven’t felt an overwhelming need to spend money, but if I were committed to collecting or progressing quickly, I can see why I’d want to. And you can be sure they give you ample opportunity to do so.
One thing to note is how power hungry this game is. I mention this here because gameplay can really be hindered if the game locks up indefinitely. My phone is no spring chicken, a Nexus 6 running Android 7.0, but it’s still a good device. During starship battles especially, where 3D really comes into play, there are times when it’s obvious my Nexus is struggling to keep up. Lagging interrupts the music and sound effects, and so can make for a grating experience all around, especially if you’ve got headphones in.
Story
The story is comprised of smaller stories contributing to the overarching theme of temporal chaos and how to handle it. You won’t find yourself wiping away tears, bursting into uproarious laughter, or aching over the ethical dilemmas, but there’s enough there to keep you going. The game continually introduces characters or their counterparts as the episodes develop, which certainly helps to keep interest and engagement up.
What’s most impressive to me I suppose is that the game has enough story for me to require more than one sentence to accurately describe to someone. I don’t generally associate that with free to play mobile games, but Disruptor Beam managed to bring an original plot to Star Trek: Timelines.
Graphics
The graphics are pretty slick. The 3D starship battles look great for a mobile game, and each character has original art. Sometimes the character art is a bit odd in one way or another, but so many are so good that it’s easy to overlook the occasional haunting rictus or a disproportionate limb.
Music
I love the music. Very “Star Trek” but distinct enough to not feel pulled from any one series.
Sound
This is complicated. I think the sound effects are generally quite good. The problem is that many of them are obviously pulled from episodes or movies, and so don’t feel like they mesh quite the same as any original sound effects. And speaking of pulled from episodes, the handful of other characters given a voice are simply lines pulled straight from the screen. That’s not bad, per se, but it does have a soundboard quality to it.
Each time I select Mayweather I hear a clip of Anthony Montgomery on some episode of Enterprise answering a hail, “Mayweather.” And the choices of line aren’t always that great. For instance, each time you select B’elanna Torres you hear “I don’t care what people think of me.”
Is that really the best line B’elanna had? The most identifiably B’elanna line they could find? I’m not so sure.
Voice Acting
The voice acting, the original voice acting, performed by John de Lancie in the reprisal of his role as Q is fantastic. It brings a certain polish and charm to the game I’m not sure it would have otherwise. I think it’s that voice that carried me through the opening sequence of events and allowed me to successfully resist the urge to close out the app forever and find something else to do–which is the fate of many of my recently downloaded mobile games.
Final Thoughts
I’ve seen other reviewers call this game a labor of love. And I’d have to agree. I believe that Disruptor Beam respected the Star Trek characters, stories, and franchise as a whole and in turn, respected their target market. While not a perfect game, and perhaps not the perfect representation of what we see and feel while settling in to watch an episode of The Next Generation or Voyager, it gets as closer than many other Star Trek games I’ve played.
I heartily recommend you give this game a shot. It’s free and quick to get into. In a lot of ways it doesn’t even feel appropriate to call it a mobile game simply based on the connotation of that term. I haven’t played a single session for less than thirty minutes.
Hell, I like this game so much, that if I do end up buying the in-game currency, I’m not even going to feel embarrassed about it. Disruptor Beam deserves some props for this one.
Final Rating: 4.5
Thank you for listening to this episode, we’ll be back soon with our full discussions of Enterprise but hope you enjoyed this little diversion. We’ll see how much traction this gets and might start making a regular series of recordings like this one.
If you want to get in touch with us we’re on Twitter @thereare4mics and if you wouldn’t mind, we’d love it if you gave us a rating and review over at iTunes.
Thanks again, see you next time.