Sometimes, you’ll make what feels like an important decision only to realize later that it didn’t matter much. That said, I do wish the consequences of certain choices had more effect on the story. Better still, I felt I understood Jara and Carter more because I had just as much time to work through the issues as they did. The timer was fast enough to make me think on my feet but not so overwhelming that I felt paralyzed by indecision. Sometimes it’s fast and sometimes it’s slow, but you have to respond – or not, but choosing not to decide is a choice in and of itself.I never felt rushed during big moments, but I knew I had to be decisive – and so did the characters I was controlling. You’ll have to make these choices quickly, too, because you’re on a timer. How well you do as Carter affects what happens to the ship, but the decisions you make as Jara affect Carter if something goes wrong. In one early scene, Carter is out on the ship’s hull repairing a critical system, while Jara is on the bridge. Jara and Carter rarely directly interact with one another but both of them play important roles in the story, and Dramatic Labs does a good job showing how the decisions made by one of them can impact the other. It gives you a better idea of the stakes for everyone aboard – problems apply to more than the folks on the bridge, who knew! – and makes scenarios more exciting. Other times it means rerouting power to a critical system or taking a spacewalk to repair the Resolute. Sometimes, that means giving orders from the bridge or leading an away team. The game's commitment to cinematic staging extends to preventing players from turning the camera in the wrong direction while walking, always facing forward, which fits the game's purpose well enough but goes against everything years of playing 3D games have ingrained into my muscle memory.The perspective effectively bounces between Jara and Carter depending on the situation. There's less room for exploration and more focus on tense set pieces where dialogue choices are on a timer, or players have to perform actions like working the ship's systems by quickly moving the analog sticks and pressing the correct buttons. I haven't had time to play too far into Star Trek: Resolute, but what I have played is a very linear experience, even compared to its Telltale Games forebears. It's a high-stakes introduction, wasting no time in setting a tone, but the focus on cinematic storytelling has if its odd moments too. Jara Rydek finds herself unexpectedly in command at that moment with live on the line before she's even found her quarters. Meanwhile, the second player character, Resolute's brand new First Officer, Cmdr. Before the Resolute can even leave space dock, catastrophe strikes, with one of the game's two player-controlled characters, Petty Officer Carter Diaz, outside on the ship's hull. The cinematic feel fuels the narrative as well. The game's hero ship, the USS Resolute, feels like a blend of the Enterprise-D and the USS Voyager, with its carpeted bridge and alcoved stations, and a chapter title appears in a blue font in an upper corner as each new scene begins, much as episode titles did during the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. There are nods to Star Trek's classic television era there as well. Star Trek: Resurgence opens with moments of Starship-induced awe and a sweeping score that feels lifted straight from a Star Trek film. However, getting to play this complete, if not quite finished, build of Star Trek: Resurgence from the game's start drove home the cinematic touches that help contextualize the game's conversation-focused gameplay. In March 2021, some of Dramatic Labs' developers walked me through a few scenes from Star Trek: Resurgence, revealing core gameplay that will be familiar to anyone who played game releases by Telltale Games, where many of the developers previously worked. Having had the chance to play some of a not-final build of the game ahead of its release later this month, I'd say that they've succeeded. Star Trek: Resurgence's lead writer and cinematic director told me in February 2022 that they wanted the game, which is the debut from Dramatic Labs, to be akin to a playable Star Trek movie.
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