Star Trek D-A-C isn't quite what I was expecting when I picked up a Star Trek game. I was expecting something complicated, overly detailed, and truly awful. Instead, I got something really basic that didn't feel like the Star Trek I know. While STD isn't a truly terrible title, it's not utterly without merit. Clearly released as a tie in to the movie (a movie I have not seen), it does a passable job of standing on its own but isn't all that great as a game.
The box touted this games "pick-up-and-play" simplicity, and that it certainly has. You pilot one of several ship options in a number of game modes. There are five ships, although the support ship isn't available in Survival mode. Each of the ships handles a little differently and has varying levels of shielding, which does let a player pick and choose what they want. The game also features a number of game modes, but all of these modes break down into variations on "Fly your ship and shoot at the other guys". This is fun for a little while, but gets old rather fast, especially when playing against the computer.
The Survival mode was the most appealing single-player experience. You pilot a single ship with several lives, and try to blow up other ships until you die. There are also several modes which set you playing against computer-controlled opponents in multiplayer-like settings. I found these game modes to be less fun, but that is probably because they are ill suited to playing against a computer.
I tried
to get into a multiplayer game, once.
Nobody was playing when I logged on, and I can't really blame them. Star Trek D-A-C is only really interesting
for about an afternoon. Multiplayer (of
which I played none) may pull it out if you have a group for it, but I doubt it. I don't really recommend this game.