Star Trek Gaming
 

In a bid to stop the bots being the only ones posting on the site...

I am very excited.
There is a new Star Trek game due out, any second now, called 'Star Trek: Tactical Assault'. It's released on two platforms, the DS and the PSP. The PSP has some fantastic graphics, while the DS has the whole Touch-screen way of playing. Personally I'm plumping for the DS. The game seems to be set in Kirks era, i.e. Original series ships. There are two main stories to play. The first is the Starfleet campaign which is set in 2284 (before The Wrath of Khan) while the other story is a Klingon one, set after the Khitomer Massacre of 2346. The game also has the whole 'pick a ship and death match with other ships for no reason' bit too, also playable over WIFI! Although the release date seems to be later this month of many sites, it seems to have come out already, at least in the USA. Europe players need to import it.
There are a few other trek games due out soon too. Star Trek: Encounters, is an arcade style shoot-em-up game, and takes ships and characters from all 5 Star Trek series, and looks rather fun, if not too deep. It's on the PS2 due out this month.
But the big gun is Star Trek: Legacy. A sort of Bridge Commander meets dominion wars type game due out on the Xbox 360 and PC (Though I'm guessing you'll need a super computer to run it). It looks really rather amazing and will be the first video game to feature the voice talents of the five starring captains from all five series - nice idea methinks. It's set in 3 different eras. Enterprise time, TOS, and the Next Gen which includes DS9 and Voyager. The story seemed to be about the Iconians from "Contagion"(TNG). The Borg assimilate the Iconian technology and it requires every captain from every era together to defeat the 'Iconian-Borg abomination'. But it seems the story has been rewritten to be cleverer and tie ever era together. Seems to be out next month.

Of course, I'm still waiting for the 'Holy Grail' Star trek gaming......Star Trek Online.....

Ciao

My only modern gaming system is a DS, so the only modern ST game I can play is Tactical Assault, but it's already on my Xmas wishlist. It looks like it'll be pretty cool. I hope it is.

As for past Star Trek games, I've always enjoyed Star Trek: Armada. I never played Armada 2, but it looks like it'd be good too. I enjoyed the Star Trek 25th anniversary game too, which had great stories as well as fun starship combat. I remember an old CGA Trek game for the computer, but hardly anything else about it.

I've played the 25th Anniversary a little, but my favorite Trek game is Starfleet Academy. A Final Unity is okay, but can get dull at times.

Armada is alway fun. Armada two builds on it, adding more ships, weapons, races and warp speed, which is quite clever. But it does suffer from the feeling that there is too much going on.....a sort of 'Too many cooks' you might say. And I'm really not sure where they got the designs for the borg ships from....most of them look like a collection of pipes....Weird.
BUT! I am looking forward to Tactical Assault. Whist I love Bridge Commander to bits, it does have the tendency to crash... every five minutes.

I don't believe I've ever played any Trek games as such. About the closest I've come to that sort of game are Homeworld and Star Control 2, both of which are pretty great games in of themselves.

Armada's all right. I wish I could find my disc of it...lost it the last time we moved the computer desk.

I'd agree. I man Armada does have some honess to god, shocking acting moments. Some truly terrible graphics moments. And a 'liberal' approch to physics (I've yet to see a object in space that after it's engines are disabled, starts spining rapidly).
But, at it's core, it's a pretty solid game. And the later levels have some fun ideas. (Spoilers) Like you controling the borg invasion of earth, then replaying it, but as the federation...Clever.
I think I'm gonna go play it now.

Oh yeah, rub it in. Thanks a lot. (Kidding) (Kinda)

Starfleet Battles. All the complexity of a computer game lovingly reproduced on paper, with a rules booklet heavier than most university textbook. Takes an hour to figure out how to fire a phaser, and another hour to figure out if you hit.

That, my friends, is real *gaming*.

No, I've never played it. Why do you ask?

SFCI-III. Especially III. Unfortunately, my disc broke, and I can't find a replacement anywhere :(

Star Control 2 rocks! I love that game.

The only Trek game I've played extensively is Birth of the Federation, which was terrific. I've watched my brothers play Armada and that seemed cool too. It's impressive that the Trek game license managed to become something halfway respectable -- for a long time (till Elite Force, probably), it was a joke. There were lots of Trek games, but they were all garbage.

Of course, that's almost always the way with licensed games. Any license has a genre, and that genre has always been done better by a game actually designed as such. No Lord of the Rings game can be the equal of Zelda, for example.

I liked Birth of the Federation, too. I'd also recommend the two Armada games, though they do have (at least the first) some strange bits pointed out in the fiver (Sovereign equal to a Borg Cube?). I can't think of any others; I don't like the genre Elite Force is in, so I can't really say I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't feel qualified to evaluate it.

I'm with Zeke. Liscenced games are almost always pretty terrible. There are a few exceptions, of course -- Goldeneye64 played a tremendous role in shaping all console FPS games to come. But that is a rare example.

If the reviews are outstanding, I might get it. But if you want a good "tactical assault" game on DS, I think StarFox would certainly be your better choice.

I own both portable systems. I'll keep an eye on the reviews, but there are almost certainly a dozen games I'd rather have for either.

I'd have to agree about licenced games. But Star Trek (And Buffy) games have their own special rules with me; I'm a bit to much of a fan. It's the same as the TV shows, as some friends pointed out to me. I'm happy to watch anything - film 45 minutes of static and call it Star Trek; I'd still give probley it 6 out of 10.
There's not too many Star Trek games, even less on the Consoles ands less still ones that let you control the star ships (Which I really enjoy). So I pretty much give blessing for anything that comes along!
The Voyager game I felt was rather good, it had problems yes, but nicely done. Except the end I think. I can't recall any Voyager episodes where Janeway takes half the crew to a station to do battle with a alien overlord and phasers him into nothing.... Not really the Starfleet way, eh?
But I'd probley go for Bridge Commander as my fav. It's a little thin and slow, but dones a good job of making you feel you're on a ship.

I own A Final Unity, and that does about as good a job of exploration, etc. in a Trek game as anything else. I mean, the different officers actually have different abilities and tools that only they can use. There's a mixture of diplomacy, exploration, and defense. Of course it has it's problems, just like all games.

I also object to the "let's turn everything into a first-person shooter" fad. Sure, I love Goldeneye 007 as much as anyone else, but for every Goldeneye you have a SpyKids or Power Rangers game.

Whoa! Unintentional pun!

Fantastic. Didn't even notice it the first time.

Of course, they left Nintendo. And took Perfect Dark. They can burn!

I also got the pun. I've noticed that unintentional puns tend to be funnier than intentional ones. Reminds me of the time that I commented that the Pillsbury Dough Boy was someone's role/roll model. It was a complicated setup, okay?

Bonus Points for someone who (off the top of your head!) knows the REAL name of the Pillsbury Dough Boy? PDB is more like his title, not his name.

Anyone else wish that they'd gotten the licensing rights to have the All Bonds option on Goldeneye?

Pop 'n' Fresh.

I thought everybody knew that.