Publisher: Simon & Schuster Interactive
Developer: Collective Studios
Game site: ds9thefallen.com
What do you know? They've overcome the Star Trek PC game curse! After the early Interplay adventure games, it's been a long drought of mediocrity or worse for the overexposed license. Then in 2000, we learned that maybe the answer was to restrict Star Trek games to shooters. DS9:The Fallen, from Simon & Schuster and Collective Studios, is a shooting adventure that even non-Trek fans can enjoy. How did the developers do it?
The Fallen is a good game precisely because it puts as much effort behind level design, attention to detail, and quality production values as it does the Trek license. Players unfamiliar with the DS9 legacy might find they've been dumped abruptly into the milieu with little introduction, but this is something they can overcome. This is a third person shooter, and running and gunning is something experienced gamers can take to like a fish to water, regardless of plot complications.
It's likely players picking up The Fallen would have at least a passing interest in Star Trek, however, and it's good to see that the developers appear to be both experienced gamers and solid Trek fans. The Fallen's timetable is somewhere before the conclusion of the DS9 television series, where it ties into existing plots about the battle between the various powers for control of the artifacts known as the Red Orbs. There are three of these orbs, and each can bestow remarkable powers to those that harness them. Your job, of course, is to put the orbs in the custody of the good guys, because if the bad guys get their hands on these balls, it'll be a painful time for the entire universe.