With Star Trek DAC being a top down arcade shooter and Gel:Set & Match a fun, unique, challenging puzzler, this week’s XBLA review could not be more different from one another.
Star Trek D-A-C is a small top down arcade shooter that resembles other XBLA releases Wing Commander and Battlestar Galactica. The game plays very fast and very well both online and off though it really lacks a lot of game. Much like Battlestar Galactica’s XBLA release, Star Trek D-A-C is unfortunately kind of a cop out of a game as well. With the immense library of stories that Naked Sky Entertainment [of Roboblitz XBLA fame] could have pulled from, they went with a generic space shooter with no story or campaign mode.
Players pick between 3 classes of Federation or Romulan ships. You have the Flagship, the behemoth class being the most powerful and slowest of the 3. The Bomber, the quickest with least amount of shields but the most powerful weapons. Finally the Fighter class which plays with dual thumbsticks like Geometry Wars. The balance between the classes works very well for all 3 game modes with the smaller classes being able to jet ahead and capture points or lure enemies away and the Flagship being able to defend points and easily be able to shoot down the smaller classes.
D-A-C stands for Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest with each mode being the typical mutiplayer aspect of most Xbox Live games. Deathmatch is team based up to 6v6 and the first team to 50 kills. With powerups littering space from a cloaking ability to a wingman powerup, that spawns a copy of yourself to fight along side you, the game is fairly balanced with smaller ships being able to quickly grab the powerups to gain an advantage over the Flagships.
Assault is objective based with both teams trying to capture and defend 2 points that unlock the enemies base for capture. With each point needing to be defended or risk capture, a good balance of speed and firepower is needed as well as a lot of teamwork.
Conquest is similar to Assault however it is more linear with 1 team being Offense and the other Defense. 4 Points are needed to be captured in this game mode and the defensive team is given more advantages with environmental turrets defending each point against the attacking team.
While Star Trek D-A-C is a great little shooter it is hard to want to plunk down the points for because there is very little game here. You have the 3 previously mentioned game modes which can be played offline or online up to 12 players but this is all you get. No story mode at all even though there are numerous stories in the Star Trek library that could have dipped into, nothing more than the ships resemble Star Trek. Without a story or even a generic campaign loosely based on the recently released movie, I find it hard to say Star Trek D-A-C is even inspired by the franchise. Those looking for a nice little arcade shooter will definitely enjoy the pace of Star Trek D-A-C, but unfortunately those wanting a Star Trek game should look elsewhere.
Gel: Set & Match is a great little puzzle game with the scariest characters I have ever seen for such a cutesy, colorful game.
Gel has 3 main game modes; Puzzle, Action, and Battle. Puzzle mode is the heart of Gel and can be played either Singleplayer or Co-Op both online and off. Singleplayer has 120 puzzles across 20 levels giving you plenty to solve just by yourself. The 30 additional Co-Op puzzle are separate from the singleplayer game and have their own unique challenges specific for playing with 2 people. A total of 150 puzzles gives this game a ton of gameplay and with leaderboards sure to give some replay value for those trying to top the best clear times.
The puzzles range from extremely easy to slightly challenging, at least for me. I got stumped with maybe 1 or 2 puzzles and me being the puzzle addict that I am, felt the challenge of Gel to be quite adequate. For those looking for a new puzzle game, take it from me, Gel will give you your money’s worth with Puzzle Mode alone. The Co-Op puzzles are just icing on the cake giving you a little bit more of a challenge with the co-op specific puzzles.
Action is sort of an endless side scrolling puzzle. Very different from Puzzle mode, you have to clear blocks that are in the way of a giant oncoming vehicle ready to plow into you and the upcoming blocks. It is kind of like a timed based puzzle where if you do not clear the blocks ahead of the vehicle, it will run over them and cause you to fail the level. Action mode has a few stages before it sets you up with endless random puzzle segments where the leaderboard tally up the distance you have traveled on the specific level.
Battle consists of 3 different games to play for up to 4 players. Fever Points is a standard battle arena with powerups and plays like a Bomberman map. In Volleybomb opponents are separated on either side and have to lob bombs across the partition in order to eliminate their opponent. Finally Emblems forces players to clear only their selected emblem from the field. If you clear the opponents you give them points rather than yourself. Battle is very fun to play online with my personal favorite being Emblems since it gives a little more to strategy.
Throughout the game you are also able to collect stars for unlocking different costume sets for your character. You can take that character online in any of the game modes and show off your Zombie Samurai [my personal choice!] or however else you decide to dress up your character. With quite a few costumes to unlock you will also find some replayability in hopes to unlock the entire wardrobe.
With so much to do in Gel I really find this game an instant buy for most Puzzle addicts. 150 total puzzles and an endless Action mode gives just a ton of gameplay. Battle mode gives a competitive arena for when you want to take a break from the other modes. For 800 Microsoft Points [$10] your money is well spent since there is so much game to play here. Gastronaut Studios did a fantastic job giving players so much to do and did not skimp out on any game mode.
Both of these games are available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points [$10] each. You can try out the Star Trek D-A-C trial here or the Gel: Set & Match trial here. Try them both and let us know how you like them in the comments below.
Thanks to Don @ Gastronaut Studios for the Gel review code and to Michelle @ BHI for the Star Trek D-A-C review and giveaway codes.
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