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Making Sense of All These Star Trek Games By Jennifer Earl posted: 12:38 pm ET 19 June 2000

A dizzying array of PC games by various producers has hit the markets over the years, winning varying degrees of acceptance by fans and gamers. This year sees a whole new crop, and SPACE.com is here to help you tell them apart.

Real-time strategy (RTS)

Real-time strategy games deal with troop movement and resource management. The player commands assorted combat and support units, sending them on missions of conquest or exploration. Since traditional RTS games are on the ground, and most of the combat on Star Trek tends to play out in space, it took awhile for game designers to come to this very popular genre.

Star Trek: New Worlds, expected out later this year, will try to fill the gap. A Romulan weapon test has created a rift in space, which pulled several new planets into the Alpha Quadrant. The Federation, Klingon Empire and, naturally, the Romulans are interested in exploring and colonizing these worlds, and before long, they become interested in shooting holes in one another. The three factions have different skills and will need different approaches to succeed in the single-player campaign.

Real-time strategy in space has been gaining momentum in the last couple of years. Star Trek: Armada, released in March, put you in charge of an entire fleet, in a galaxy after the events of the Dominion War. Command the forces of the Federation, Romulans, Klingons or Borg, and play through an assortment of single-player missions from these different points of view.

Both New Worlds and Armada support multiple players. New Worlds offers the standard "deathmatch" for up to three players, and a campaign mode, in which players take opposing sides in the single-player missions. Armada allows players to battle via gaming service WON.net, LAN or the Internet. Fans are already cranking out the add-on maps.

If Armada isn’t enough fleet action for you or if you’ve already crushed all of your puny opponents on WON.net, Star Trek: Starfleet Command Volume II -- Empires at War is waiting in the wings.

The original Starfleet Command from Interplay brought us starship naval combat in the ever war-torn Star Trek universe. The sequel is expected out this winter.

Inspired by the Starfleet Battles board game, the original game gave players command over the fleet of six possible cultures, each with unique strengths ad weapon preferences. Players can achieve rank and prestige in the single-player campaign, make some quick space carnage in a skirmish mode, or, of course, mix it up with human opponents over LAN, the Internet, or the Mplayer.com service. Starfleet Command Volume I, and presumably Volume II, are for Windows machines only.

But wait, there’s more! Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Dominion Wars is due out this fall from Simon & Schuster. As the title implies, players will take part in the dust-up between the Federation/Klingon forces and the Cardassian/Jem’Hadar. Build up your ship captains and fleets as you lead one of the four factions to victory over computer or human opponents.

Yet another Trek RTS is on the drawing board. In Star Trek Away Team, due out in 2001, players command squads of Starfleet officers in missions on the ground.

Star Trek: New Worlds

Star Trek: Armada

Starfleet Command

Space sims

Space simulations are usually little better than the bastard offshoot of flight simulators. One space jockey sits at the controls of a small fighter -- maybe he has a gunner, but usually he handles all systems himself, from throttle to missiles to shields.

This kind of single-person fighter isn’t seen much in the Star Trek universe, but those few Star Trek space simulators that do exist offer a departure from the TIE Fighter and Wing Commander mold.

This year, Trek’s answer to space sims comes in the form of Klingon Academy, long-awaited sequel to Interplay’s 1997 title, Starfleet Academy.

Both Academy games put players in the captain’s chair of an assortment of capital ships, including familiar craft like the Klingon Bird of Prey and some new ones designed for the games.

Starfleet Academy was criticized for feeling too much like a sluggish fighter simulation, but reaction to this summer’s Klingon Academy have been better. Set before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, players take the role of a Klingon cadet. Attend lectures and learn why General Chang was obsessed with Shakespeare, then it’s time for glorious conquest for the Empire.

From the bridge, players can issue commands through a menu-based system to manage every aspect of combat, or take the gunnery chair and let the helmsman take care of the flying. Rather than have small ships bat one another around with puny cannons and missiles, Klingon Academy’s capital ships blast the heck out of one another with an array of death-dealing firepower until shields fizz out and decks buckle.

Klingon Academy is for Windows; running it with a good 3D graphics card is advised. Multiplayer mode allows for Internet or LAN deathmatches and cooperative missions.

Klingon Academy

 Action games

Here we find the shooters. Action games are just what they sound like -- run around with a big gun putting the hurt on everyone who gets in your way. This isn’t a very Starfleet attitude, so it’s no surprise that the Klingons were the first to really join this party in 1998 with Klingon Honor Guard.

This year the franchise is back to show that Starfleet officers aren’t just about hiding behind their bridge consoles.

Due out soon from Activision, Star Trek: Voyager -- Elite Force is garnering a lot of attention. A first-person shooter (FPS) based on the Quake III engine, the storyline takes the player, in the guise of a Voyager security officer, through a series of missions against mysterious alien menaces, including the Borg and Species 8472.

Instead of bloody deathmatches (apparently the developers couldn’t quite get that past Paramount), Elite Force allows multiple players to shoot it out on the holodeck, which arguably makes more sense than getting blown to gibs and being endlessly resurrected on a Quake or Unreal netmap. While Elite Force is slated for Windows this fall, a Mac OS port is expected to come soon afterwards.

Another action title expected this fall uses a different graphics engine, has a different publisher, and is based on a different show. But it’s all Trek, right? Come home to Trek, Trek loves you. Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen, a third-person action game using the Unreal Tournament engine, will let players step into the shoes of Sisko, Kira or Worf as they try to prevent the return of the evil Pah-Wraiths. The three characters have different strengths -- Kira is stealthy while Worf can take a lot of punishment -- and approach the unfolding plot in different ways.

The Fallen is coming from Simon and Schuster for PC and Mac OS.

Miscellaneous Trek

Star Trek: ConQuest Online is a little unusual. Players take the role of a Q and face off against other members of the Continuum by manipulating pawns.

The pawns, naturally, are those inferior species Q loves to mess around with, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard or the Borg Queen. ConQuest is modeled after collectible card games like Magic: the Gathering -- players have virtual "pieces" with varying degrees of rarity. Just downloading the game ($10) starts you off with some; paying a few dollars gets you a few more; buying the retail version gets you access to special, retail-only pieces.

Players can trade their pieces online. Gaining territory wins command points, which can then be spent on more pawns, ships and resources. Registered players face off online to be the coolest of the Q. ConQuest runs on Windows 95/98.

In Star Trek: Starship Creator Warp II, players can custom-build and staff a starship and then send it out into the world, commanding it through pre-built or user-designed scenarios. In an interesting development, the publisher has stated that Starship Creator Warp II will be compatible with its upcoming tactical fleet game, Deep Space Nine Dominion Wars, so that players can send their customized dream machines out into Dominion Wars missions.

Simon & Schuster Interactive publishes Starship Creator Warp II for Windows and Mac OS

Star Trek: ConQuest Online

Star Trek: Starship Creator Warp II

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