Platform: PC

Developer: The Tiniest Shark

Publisher: Positech

Release Date: November 13, 2013

Genre: Simulation / Strategy

Nerd Rating: 4 out of 10

Published by those who brought us Democracy 3, that game where I get assassinated every time I play, Redshirt has got to be a pretty decent game, right? Wrong. Redshirt is a social media simulator/strategy game (as if real social media wasn’t far more prominent then it needs to be as is) that relies heavily on Star Trek references (the game is named after Star Trek.) Admittedly, I haven’t even seen a single Star Trek yet. I plan to, I just don’t have time to watch much television and I’m preoccupied currently with Breaking Bad. That being said, I truly didn’t get the references which took a huge chunk out of the supposed enjoyment of the game.

Redshirt gameplay is how you would assume a social media simulator’s gameplay would be. It is a clone, to say, of Facebook. You play as a low-ranking peon aboard a space station, and you have ambitions (similar to The Sims) that vary from adding a certain friend, dating a certain person, to being more popular. The game certainly has no problem telling you that you are doing terrible, as in the bottom right corner it stated “‘my character’s name’ is definitely a nobody.” (Thanks for the self-esteem boost, developers.) You have a certain limited amount of “moves” (if you can call them that) each day, then you are forced to go to bed. Upon waking up, you can do one move and then you attend work (no gameplay involved, just raises stats) and continue playing more moves. Moves vary from adding people, liking posts, messaging people, to going to events. It is very much like Facebook, and is even called “spacebook.” This game seems like it’s directed towards people with no friends who don’t get to experience actual Facebook.

Character creation in Redshirt is very simple and minimal. Simple and minimal aren’t always bad things, and I’m not in any way saying that a game has to use Bethesda’s extremely in-depth character creation. However, in Redshirt, gameplay is minimal and more in-depth character creation would’ve added more realism to the simulator and a little diversity. The characters in Redshirt, in my opinion, are very ugly. Despite having character creation, no matter what changes you apply to your character or what race you play as, you cannot escape the ugliness. I chose to play as the Xx’th’xx, a race that resembles an octopus or the aliens from the planet Rigel VII in The Simpsons. The reason I chose this race was because it was the only non-humanoid race and the humanoids were beyond ugly.

On Steam, one thing developers LOVE to do is add positive reviews from popular review sources to their game’s description. Everyone has their own opinion; however, I cannot see how this game got good reviews at all. Seeing the positive reviews in the game description made me feel like some websites say good stuff simply to support developers, as the game is nothing like these good reviews raved. (*cough* PC Gamer *cough*) Even the Steam community agrees that this game is simply not fun, and this is obvious from the top-rated reviews on Steam all being negative, which is rare for a Steam game.

Redshirt costs $19.99 USD, however, it was gifted to me by a friend so I did not pay money for it. Thank god. This game, to me, is worth $5.99 maybe $9.99 at most. I would not recommend buying this game unless it is at a good discount, and even then, Steam is loaded with better games at much cheaper prices. If you have the $20 to spend, I recommend saving up a few more dollars and buying Democracy 3 (also published by Positech) instead. This game got boring within five minutes of playing, and that is not an exaggeration. The only reason I didn’t immediately uninstall it was so I could keep playing a little more for reviewing purposes.

Do you agree with my review of Redshirt? Feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments! Everyone’s opinion is appreciated.