Simply drag the application from the disk image to your hard drive. Once copied, start the game, enter your activation code (there is no option to play as a demo), and begin...waiting. There are many intro and loading screens which you cannot skip through, you just have to wait. The time to finally get to the game menu takes nearly a full minute.

Star Trek DAC is a top down shooter based on this summer's blockbuster: Star Trek. Up to 6 ships on each side (The Federation vs the Romulans) can be on the field, blasting each other over and over. There are four different modes included: Deathmatch, Assault, Conquest, and Survival (the last being an addition after the game was originally published for other platforms, which is where DAC comes from).

In deathmatch mode, it's pretty much what you expect. The ships are flying around the screen, grabbing weapon upgrades and power-ups, and shooting each other until time runs out, or the max kill limit is reached. This mode is a good way to learn the basics of the game play (and hone your skills), but it gets boring very fast. There is so much potential for some really cool action, but the gameplay boiled down to grabbing weapon upgrades without getting shot, then finding the enemies an blasting away.

In assault mode, you are given the chance to first attack, then defend a series of control points and a main base. This mode has a lot of potential, but it turned out to be too easy to be fun. If you just sit inside of the control point and blast anyone that comes near, you will be able to defend very easily. The computer doesn't understand this, so attacking and taking over control points is extremely simple.

In conquest mode, there are two bases, and some control points. Your team must control the control points before you can attack the enemy base. The first team to take over the enemy base wins. This mode does take a bit of skill, and is fun at first. However, it gets annoying when the AI controlled team members never seem to really know what they are doing, so you are left trying to beat the entire enemy team nearly single handed.

Finally, survival mode is probably my favorite (and the reason Star Trek DAC will stay installed). In this mode, it's you against wave after wave of enemies. You have three lives, and your goal is to survive as long as you can, gaining as high of a score as you can. Why is this less repetitive than the other modes? Well, it's not. But what makes it worthwhile is you have a goal to shoot for: beating your highest score per ship type. Early arcade games had this exact same goal, and they were insanely popular. By have something to actually shoot for (pun intended), the survival mode has become this game's saving grace.

In all modes (except survial), you choose to be either a member of the Federation or the Romulans. Again, there is a lot of potential here for varying ship fleets and power-ups. Unfortunately both sides are almost exactly the same (besides looking different). Each side has five exactly-the-same ship types. The power-ups are Federation and Romulan specific, which adds a little bit of strategy based on the side you choose, but I really feel like this game could have been much more exciting if each side had distinct advantages.

One really nice aspect to the game is the cool looking graphics. Being a top down shooter, I didn't expect much, but the level of detail is pretty high. You can actually pick out NCC-1701 on the federation flagship if you look closely. However, due to either these nice graphics, or simply inefficient coding, this game maxes out your CPUs. On a desktop Mac, this wouldn't be a big deal. But part of what makes a good time wasting game for me is something that I can play at the airport. If I launched this game, I fear my battery would be drained in under an hour (on a new MacBook Pro that gets 7 hours battery runtime under normal use).

The game also falls short in regards to controls, maps, and weapon selection. The controls are surprisingly clunky. I found it almost impossible to actually control my flight path at first, and still had trouble after a few hours of play. The maps, well, thereis really only one. Sure, the background changes slightly, but there is no significant difference between any of the maps. They are so similar, I would rather not have a choice, and instead reduce the number of clicks it requires to start a game. Plus the weapons are simply lackluster. Depending on your ship, you may get some phasers, torpedoes, or bombs. The bombs are the dumbest ideas I have ever seen (especially for a Star Trek game), as there is no placement, they just fall behind your ship. The flagship has a combination of auto-firing phasers and manual firing torpedoes, but that's not enough. A game like this should have dozens of different weapons.

Finally, one of the nicer features advertised about the game is the multiplayer mode. Unfortunately, I was never able to try it, as any time I searched for servers, none were available. It could be cool if you had a few friends to play with so you were guaranteed a server, but don't expect to find anyone randomly hosting any games.

There are a lot of issues with the audio. At first, the audio was turned so far down, all I could hear was blips. When I finally figured out that I needed to turn it up, the audio still wasn't constant, with blips heard quite often. This is quite distracting, and screams "unpolished."

Even though Star Trek DAC is the first Star Trek game to come out for the Mac in a long time, and it is very inexpensive, I would not recommend it. There was a lot of potential that could have been unleashed, but instead, the developers bottled it up in their attempt to make a quick buck. Do not buy this game unless you enjoy being bored.

Pros	Cons
Cool graphics Four game modes - the best being survival Five ship classes fits anyone's play style Overall look and feel is fairly true to Star Trek	Has some sound playback issues Romulan and Federation ships are almost exactly the same VERY limited map set Controls are surprisingly difficult to master No secondary weapons Long load times and overly heavy CPU use Nobody is available for multiplayer
4/10 stars