izigame.me

I don't usually write reviews for games, but for this one I feel compelled to.
Let's get one thing out of the way first: this is not a game. Don't look at it as a game. This is a 10 hour long Star Trek movie that has game-like elements. If that's a showstopper for you then stop reading cause you're probably not going to like this game, if it isn't then please read on.
I've been playing Star Trek games for a LONG time, going all the way back to the Win95 games like Starfleet Command and Away Team. Star Trek games are ALL OVER THE PLACE in terms of quality and when I first saw this game come out on the Epic launcher I brushed it off as another low effort cash grab *cough* JJ-verse games *cough*.
But this game is not that. This game has heart and it has soul and within a few minutes of the opening cut scene you'll see very clearly that the devs care very much about this game and that they are huge Star Trek fans.
I'm going to get the gameplay part of this review out of the way here so I can just gush about the story afterward. The gameplay is ... not great. This game is 75% quick time events and dialogue choices. The other 25% is puzzles which are only in there to give this game a game-y feel. I will say though that the puzzles don't seem like they're out of place for the universe. For instance, a common puzzle is aligning the transporter matter stream and energizing the buffer for transport. Honestly, I've never seen that before. I've never seen a game attempt to integrate that before. Usually it's just press a button and you beam down. But no, they made a mini puzzle out of it. And yeah that puzzle is pretty rudimentary, but it's engaging and it actually does feel like you're the transporter tech struggling to boost power to the annular confinement beam to stabilize the matter stream (kudos to you if you're getting all these references). And that's the great thing about this game, it feels like you're there, in uniform, on the deck, trying to save the day. All flaws aside, I couldn't really ask for anything more out of a Star Trek game.
Now onto the story...
This game has story. It is well crafted, it is well thought out, it is well designed, and it is chock full of Star Trek references; in some cases, very obscure Star Trek references. The game takes place in the 24th century post First Contact and Dominion War. But if you're a fan, you probably figured that out from the cover art. You play as two people: Commander Jara Rydek and Petty Officer Carter Diaz.
When you're playing as Commander Rydek, you are the officer on deck. You have the information, you have the knowledge, you have the authority; but you're the one with the responsibility. You're the one who has to stand for what you believe in and make the tough calls. Everyone else has their opinion; but at the end of the day, you're the one who has to pull all those people together to make things happen. And not all your choices are going to be popular, many of them are straight up pick a side because not everyone is going to agree with what you're doing; and personally I think that's great, I think that's awesome. I think too many games shy away from the kind of deep character driven story choices that drive a good story and Resurgence isn't afraid to do that; just like all the great Star Trek episodes do. More than once I felt conflicted about the course of action I was about to take because I didn't want to let my crew down; and I think that's an amazing feeling to have in a game.
On the flip side, you have Petty Officer Diaz. Before I get into him. let me just say that it is a great detail that they actually included the enlisted officer rank pip; which to my knowledge, only exists in the expanded Star Trek universe. When you're playing Diaz, you're the redshirt going at the problem in the mud. You're the one whose out in space having to repair a plasma conduit or redistribute the EPS manifolds because the warp core is going to breech. You're the one in the lower decks about to be blasted with a phaser because of some decision the brass decided to make that you have absolutely no control over. When you're playing Diaz, you're the guy out in the field, fixing the ship to keep it from falling out of the sky.
Of the two, I much preferred playing as Rydek. But the devs did a great job in not shoehorning either character into the sidelines. Both characters have impact on the story and both characters are just as important to the game.
Now as for all the other characters, again the devs did a good job at fleshing them out. By the time you're through with the game, which is only like 10 or so hours, you'll know all the officers on the bridge, all the aliens, all the crew, all the hero's, all the villain's and where they all stand. It is quite an accomplishment for such a compact game. And if you're really willing to lose yourself in the story, the choices you make can feel very rewarding. And it's just awesome getting to call red alert in the heat of the moment!
Lastly, I'm going to close out the review with my biggest gripes about the game. The very first one is that there are no save states. There is no revert, there is no going back, once you finish a story chapter and you've made your decision, then that's that. Like I get that for a story based game you want to have the players decisions be locked in and feel permanent; BUT, I literally got halfway through the game, made a single decision I wanted to go back on and couldn't cause the chapter had already closed (and as it turns out the vast majority of players made the same decision I did on that first go. Minor spoilers: it was the shield algorithm decision) I had to start the whole game over and play through everything AGAIN just to get back to my decision point. Which wasn't the worst because I was planning to replay the game once anyway, but it certainly felt like a waste of time to do that.
Next up is the severe lack of control settings, mainly the cursor speed which is PAINFULLY slow. The UI surrounding the game is very bare bones and you'll likely find several industry standard QoL features that are missing completely from this game. Ultimately it doesn't take away from the core experience, but like how hard is it to give me a scroll bar that I can use to adjust my cursor speed? (Edit: Wait, did they patch that in? I swear it wasn't there when I wrote the review ... )
And then there are the character models and animations which are ... passable at best. They look like they're 80% done and are good in most places; but they could have used a few more rounds of polish.
I'll say it again, if you're here because you're expecting a slick, well polished game, then look elsewhere because this ain't it. But if you're looking for an engaging and immersive Star Trek story set in the 24th century, then this game is right for you. Seriously, don't think of it as a game. Think of it as one long Star Trek episode and you'll have a great time!
Devs, if you're reading this I have two things to say to you. 1) PLEASE make a follow up. It doesn't have to be the same crew if the story of the Resolute is over; but please make another one if you can. I promise you that if you release the follow up on steam I'll buy it day 1. 2) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add forward facing torpedo tube launchers to the Resolute model. You have no idea how much that bothered me. Don't get me wrong, I love the Resolute and I love your decision to include such an obscure ship class in this game. I also love the choice to set the game on small science vessel like the Nova class, instead of like a Galaxy class, or something else more well known. So that's all great, but please PLEASE, my kingdom for two torpedo tubes :)