Ubisoft have been around for a while now. The French based company known for classics such as Rayman Assassins Creed and Prince of Persia are striking into unknown territory with their latest offering.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew has been on demo at the E3 expo this week in L.A.and is looking quite appealing. Bringing Star Trek to VR is almost akin to Holodeck-ception, which I fully appreciate. You are immersed in the flight deck of a Starfleet ship (Disclaimer: Not the Enterprise…), assuming the role of one of the crew and you must communicate with the rest of the flight deck in order to control the ship without rolling it into a nearby star where there would NOT be life as we know it!
Obviously, the order of rank must be respected and each player involved has their own set of functions to add to the mix (buttons to press). Reports from the Expo claim it is not exactly riveting but bear in mind this is just a demo for the event.
Bridge Crew will be available on Rift, Vive and the PS VR this Autumn and is an online game for up to players, and, as I mentioned above, each player will assume a different role:
The Captain will be giving orders and has information fed to him that the other players are not aware of.
Engineering controls all of the ships power levels, which does not sound very exciting but I imagine it will be as addictive as Sudoku once the player grasps their role.
The tactician controls both the weapons and the shields whilst the helm navigates the ship through infinity and beyond.
There are certain rules that have to be obeyed. Firstly El Capitano has to be played by a human but the computer can play the others. Also, whilst player single player in the role of captain, you can hot-swap into other roles to carry out orders in a more precise monitored fashion.
There is a real draw to it though, I mean, you are actually sitting in a spaceship once you don the correct head-ware. You can look out at the planets, enemy ships etc, you can even hide the ship and just be a human floating in space, no tin-can in sight.
The beauty lies in the little bits though. For example, if a player is confused and naturally motions confusion with their body in the real world, the VR player will seem confused as well through your headset.
Impressive, most impressive. Let’s hope they add a ton more content and actions for the players to do which could catapult this fun looking game solidly onto the VR stage… Live long and prosper!