TREKCORE > GAMING > HARBINGER > Trekcore Review

ARTICLE: Star Trek DS9 Harbinger Review
AUTHOR: DOSMAN
DATE PUBLISHED: August 1, 2006

Overview:
Harbinger provides an ultimately worthwhile experience for the DS9 gamer. It is one of the few, great Trek adventure titles and is one of only seven games on my personal favorites list.

Description:
You play the Tirrion Envoy, Bannik, who is recalled to Deep Space Nine in order to assist your superior, Ambassador Karrig, in First Contact procedure with a new Gamma Quadrant species. Things quickly start a turn for the worse, however, as you must defend against unprovoked attacks, solve a murder mystery, and unlock the secrects of the Scythian race.

Opinion:
It is stardate 48987.7, or sometime in 2371 (end of the third season). You play Bannik in a first-person view throughout the entire game, meaning you never get to actually see your character. You walk around a location via a series of linked static screens, so there is no live ambulation. Instead, you move the cursor to the edge of the screen until it turns into an arrow. When you click that arrow, you "move" to the next static screen along that path (I hear this is very much like Myst). It takes some getting used to but is, eventually, very effective.

Like A Final Unity, the entire game is setup in a television episode-like format: The entertaining and well directed, pre-rendered teaser follows Bannik as he returns through the wormhole to Deep Space Nine. That then fades right into to a superb, almost-perfect digital capture of the series' opening credit sequence! The teaser and credit sequence, combined, start the game off in grand style.

Harbinger is divided into two halves on two CD-ROMs. The first half takes place entirely aboard Deep Space Nine. Due to techinical, plot, and budgetary considerations, Stormfront had to come up with a way to limit the station area and number of characters they had to render. Their solution was a plasma storm that fills the Bajoran sector for the duration of the game--a plot device no different than what the series writers had used for the same practical reasons. So, due to this plasma storm, most of the station is sealed-off by force fields. You can only access Ops, 1/3 of the Upper and Lower Promenade, and small sections of the Habitat and Docking Rings throughout the entire game.

Also due to the plasma storm, nearly all of the inhabitants of Deep Space Nine have been evacuated to Bajor. The game does feature Sisko, Kira, Jadzia Dax, Odo, Quark, and the Cardassian computer, all voiced by the actors who portray them in the series, along with brand new characters. Unfortunately, O'Brien, Bashir, Jake Sisko, Garak, and all the other recurring characters from the series leave or evacuate before you arrive (meaning they're not in the game). The Defiant is though, but only at the end.

Despite these restrictions, Harbinger manages to provide story, dialog, and atmosphere worthy of the series it is based on. Almost as soon as the game begins you are plunged into a web of seemingly unrelated and concurrent events: A curious murder-mystery you must solve, a cryptic new Gamma Quadrant species you must attempt to communicate with, and alien drones you must defend the station from. Like in the best Deep Space Nine episodes, these individual threads gradually intertwine to form both a spiritual and scientific reality, bringing richness to the overall experience. And to further enhance immersion, the writers were smart enough to add references to the Dominion and Kira's past in the Resistance, among other things, within different branches of dialog (giving the game extra replay value).

On a more superficial note, the interior of the station is gorgeous with lots of detail, but you'll see very little extraneous activity (blinking lights, noises, people, ect.). More technical limitations can be seen in the nearly motionless character models that only marginally resemble the actors. However, the biggest technical flaw is the unevenly recorded voice files and how they are combined with the game's sound effects. Sometimes you'll hear a line of dialog that's noticeably louder than the norm, but more often you'll be straining to hear what someone is saying against the background hum of the station. This latter problem might be specific to my PC, but I have no way to confirm that.

In the second half of the game, you travel to and infiltrate an alien automated factory responsible for launching the drones. Unfortunately, you must spend most of this portion by yourself, away from the character interaction and group involvement that helped make the first half so memorable. In addition, the large amount of movement within the factory becomes very tedious, ...and it doesn't help to have flying drones attacking you every "static scene"-step of the way (during maze and bridge crossings)! This will require frequent saving (which you can do anytime), but its better to know how to turn off the drones in the maze as early as possible (hint: keep going up!).

Even so, don't let this second half turn you away! Although you can also get a little lost on what to do, it still manages to hold your interest and fit in with the rest of the game. The puzzles throughout both halves are so well integrated into the setting and the story that you won't even care that it's "puzzle time"! The arcade sequences throughout the game can be annoying, but they're manageable and bring a little action to an otherwise adventure-only title; the optional holodeck sequences (which you can play anytime you're near Quark's) add even more action. Finally, the ending is not anticlimactic and brings this virtual episode to a proper close.

From drinks in Quark's Bar to Odo's murder investigation, from Dax's sensor analyses to Sisko's "Station Log"; for the DS9 fan it's like spending time with old friends, and that's too precious a feeling to pass up.