- Original Release: 2000
- Developer: Warthog Games
- Publisher: Activision
- Platform: PlayStation
Star Trek Invasion is a space combat game developed for the PlayStation. Targeting a more casual audience than other Star Trek games, this game has you flying around in single-person fighters.
As fighters aren’t a big thing in Star Trek, this game takes a lot of liberties with the franchise, as every race has suddenly started using fighters, including the Borg. These alien fighters have nice designs, as well as the starting Federation fighter. As you progress though the game, you’ll get new and upgraded fighters which…are quite ugly. That said, the game itself looks really nice, especially for the original PlayStation.
Your ship is equipped with multiple kinds of phasers, so you can have “bullet style” ones or beam ones, although both are slow, so your targeting lock-on displays a marker ahead of enemy ships to show where you need to aim. You can twist, boost and move to the side. I found the controls to work really well and the gameplay is very enjoyable in short bursts, but unfortunately very repetitive if you’re playing though the whole game as there’s not much variety, mostly just blowing up ships. There are a couple of nice set pieces (including a Death Star II attack on a Borg Cube), but it’s mainly just blowing up other fighters.
The story feels like a jumbled mess. While the opening cutscene shows a massive Borg invasion, this is a trivial part of the story, instead it focuses on a mysterious new alien species that have been accidentally awakened by a Federation ship. That said, the story itself jumps around different scenarios, with you dealing with Cardassians, then the Borg, then this new species. The levels don’t flow. In one mission you fight the borg in deep space, the next you protect the Typhon (the carrier ship that transports the fighters) because it has sustained damage in battle, but it’s suddenly falling into a star.
The difficulty of the game also ramps up very quickly, with harsh time limits and some levels with infinitely respawning enemies. If you choose to play on easy difficulty (which still gets challenging), the game stops half way through, telling you to start the game from scratch at a higher difficulty level. On top of this, a lot of missions are hidden behind “secrets”, which the game gives you no hints about. These can be needing to have a certain accuracy rating or finding hidden objects and using the tractor beam on them. One of the secret missions unlocked in this manner is actually a requirement for the ending of the game – miss it and you’ll get a different one.
Invasion is a lot of fun in short bursts, but doesn’t feel much like a Star Trek game – if it wasn’t for Worf being your commander, you would easily forget.
Where to get Star Trek: Invasion
How to play Star Trek: Invasion on Windows 11
As this is a PS1 game, you’ll need a PlayStation 1 emulator. My emulator of choice was DuckStation, which has some nice features such as widescreen (which works well for Invasion) and disable widescreen for FMVs, so they’re not distorted.
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I remember loving this game.
Was this like SW: Rogue Squadron?
I always wanted a game like this featuring the Defiant from #DS9. Maneuvering around larger ships and firing pulse phasers would have been cool.
I’d say somewhere in between X-Wing and Rogue Squadron. Not quite as arcade style as Rogue Squadron, but a similar kind of game.
Wish this would get a PC port!! It is such a good looking game stuck on the PS1, and it controls really well! Too bad its sequel was scrapped way back when. BUT, you can still use Valkyrie fighters in STO, which is neat🎉
Duckstation is great at running the game – looks nice and sharp and works well in widescreen (there’s an option to make the cutscenes still work in 4:3 so they’re not stretched or cropped, too). It would be nice to have an official way to buy and play the game, though.
Again I loved this game! I think it’s one of the best Star Trek Fighter games there’s been.
I remember friending cheat mode on and wailed away!
The Valkyrie version 1 was my favourite design.
Story was good with Hur’q and mutinies on Starfleet ships.
Loved this game one ov my all time favs
DS9 portrayed this (very superficially) IIRC. But yeah, a fighter based gameplay set in Star Trek is still kind of insane. Who would come up with this premise? 😂
Ah, now this is one I didn’t know about, probably as I didn’t grow up with a PlayStation.
Never got around to playing this one. Didn’t have a PlayStation back in the day! I wonder if there’s a ROM somewhere for it
This is probably one of the best Star Trek games on console. I have the PS1 version on my PSP and love firing it up every now and then. It’s quite challenging and controls and graphics still hold up today compared to other games of that era which can be clunky and dated.
It was very much Star Trek’s answer to the Colony Wars games that were on the PS1. It was very difficult i ended using cheats most of the time. One of the bonus missions involves you leading the Enterprise-E out of an astetoid field
Absolutely loved this game — especially as it let me fulfil the dream of flying through the middle of a Romulan Warbird 😁