These problems might be forgivable if Shattered Universe's combat were well designed, but unfortunately it isn't. Each fighter ship has three basic weapons: a basic phaser, a bolt weapon (which is like a quick, short phaser burst), and photon torpedoes. When engaging smaller ships, really, the only weapon that is of any use to you is the basic phaser, since the leading targeting reticle for your targeted ship isn't accurate enough for your bolt weapon, and photon torpedoes are completely useless unless you're attacking a starship. Also, despite the fact that the game can be rather trying, the AI of opposing ships isn't especially brilliant. Fighters have some rather rudimentary attack patterns that can be easily avoided with some decent flying skills. As for the starships, the only real challenge comes from the fact that their weapons are pretty adept at taking you out in only a couple of short bursts. However, some missions do require you to destroy starships, so generally, your best bet is to find a spot within tight range of the opposing ship--so that its weapons can't lock onto you--and start hammering the attack buttons for the several minutes it takes to destroy the ship. If this doesn't sound like much fun, well, you're right, it isn't.
As far as Shattered Universe's presentational aspects go, you can't help but think that the developers really didn't put much effort into any of them. The game's graphics definitely aren't anything special--ship designs lack much in the way of detail, and the various effects used for phaser fire, explosions, and the like all look extremely low-rent. The same can be said for the multitude of different space environments in the game. Though there's a decent variety of different background elements, like nebulae, space stations, asteroid fields, and even occasional planets, none of them look in any way impressive. The game also features a number of awful CG cutscenes, with in-game versions of Sulu and Chekov that are laughable at best. Every CG character moves in painfully slow motion, and the actual renderings barely look anything like the actors, especially Sulu, who looks like some kind of decrepit skeleton. The PS2 and Xbox versions of the game look near-identical in every way. For what it's worth, the Xbox version does support 480p, though it doesn't look much better when using it.
Shattered Universe is to Star Trek games what Star Trek V was to Star Trek movies.
Shattered Universe's sound design is equally as unimpressive as the game's visuals. It should have been a simple task for George Takei and Walter Koenig to reprise their longtime roles as Sulu and Chekov in Shattered Universe, and yet, somehow, when you listen to them talk in the game, it sounds more like this is their first experience with the roles. Takei phones in his performance horribly, flatly reading every line as though it were some kind of college dissertation, and as for Koenig, though he tries to emphasize the inherent "evilness" of his mirror-universe character, it just comes off more as unintentional parody than anything else. In terms of in-game sound, there's a limited amount of music that plays throughout the game, as well as some rather bland-sounding phaser and explosion sounds, but not much else.
Perhaps if it existed in an alternate universe, Star Trek: Shattered Universe might be a game worth playing. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In our universe, Shattered Universe's dull, unimaginative gameplay, redundant mission structure, and highly unimpressive production values make for a pretty lousy game all around. As an attempt at Star Trek, it wastes every opportunity given to it to do something even mildly interesting or entertaining, and it certainly won't please any fan of the franchise. As for its place among space combat games, it is completely unimpressive in every imaginable way and is easily shown up by practically every game currently available in the genre today. There's just nothing about Shattered Universe worth recommending to Star Trek fans or space shooter fans, and if you fall into either category, you're definitely better off looking elsewhere for your particular needs.
Star Trek: Shattered Universe (Xbox):
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