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Dramatic Labs

PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S

Wishfully Studios

Xbox One and Series X/S, PC

NORMALLY in this column I try to focus on games that I have really enjoyed – after all, it is more fun to write and read about things that are fun! Unfortunately, the games I have played this month just haven’t quite clicked for me, so I thought I would explain why.

First up is Star Trek: Resurgence, a game I actually flagged as one to look forward to in 2022, but has only just been released due to production delays. It is a bit baffling, then, that the final game is so unpolished, marring what could otherwise be a great experience.

The Star Trek fans among you will know that the franchise is having its best period since the 1990s, with numerous TV shows bringing back old favourites (Spock, Picard) and introducing new ones. Saru, played by the amazing Doug Jones under a heap of prosthetics in Star Trek: Discovery, is up there with the greats, in my book.

Resurgence looked like it would follow the same formula, drawing deep from Star Trek: The Next Generation nostalgia in terms of style and tone – even down to chapter titles in the same font as the TV show – while giving us a new ship and crew to get to know. The good news is that it absolutely nails this. The bad news is that the game is a boring mess.

In Resurgence, you play as two characters on board the USS Resolute: the new first officer, Jara Rydek, and Carter Diaz, a low-ranking engineer. Flipping between the two is a great way of showing the consequences of command. When I was playing as Rydek, for example, I made the decision to follow orders and blow away docking clamps from the ship, even though this would put Diaz, who was conducting a spacewalk on the hull, in danger.

The game is full of good moments like this – the first time Rydek stepped onto the bridge of the Resolute was definitely a thrill – but they are sandwiched between long periods of tedium. It felt like half the game was spent slowly manoeuvring the characters’ hands to press a switch or pull a lever, bulking out gameplay in a way that made me wish I was just watching TV.

Technical issues also ruined my immersion in the story, with characters repeating their lines and the camera being in the wrong place. As such, it is hard to recommend the game to any but the most dedicated fans.

The other game I played this month was Planet of Lana, in which a peaceful sci-fi world is disturbed by a robotic invasion. The game is absolutely gorgeous, with echoes of Studio Ghibli, but again the moment-to-moment gameplay left me cold.

You play as a young girl, Lana, and after a short introductory sequence find yourself fleeing from said robots, which have more than a passing resemblance to the Martians from The War of the Worlds. You are soon joined by a cute animal companion and the two of you have to traverse the world without being captured. This mostly plays out as shifting boxes around so that you can reach high ledges or block an attack by a robot.

That is a fairly compressed description of the experience, but having played many similar puzzle-platformers in the past, I started to feel as if, hidden behind the beautiful art, I could actually see the bland cubes I was manipulating just as I had in so many other games previously.

Clunky controls and easily mistimed jumps eventually led me to put down the game in frustration, again wishing that I could just sit back and watch an artfully produced movie version, without the game getting in the way.

Jacob also recommends…

Playdead

PC, PlayStation 3, 4 and Vita, Xbox 360 and One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android

One of the best puzzle-platformers out there, telling a creepy story with a fantastic art style. Planet of Lana cribs heavily from its ideas