The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom]

Got this for father's Day, started playing last night, just reached the surface. I like the new powers and navigating the sky map takes a lot more thought.

 

The building is a bit fiddly but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I keep wanting to use the ABXY buttons to rotate whole holding R, it just feels more natural, and I keep throwing weapons instead of rotating. That said, I haven't properly used the Switch in over a year, so hopefully I'll get more used (I just find they due to different control methods, the switch buttons aren't memorable).

 

The ascened is an interesting power, one I'm going to forget about a lot before realising I can use it for puzzles (I've even already done it), but again, it's getting used to it more. 

 

Really enjoying it so far despite the fiddlyness.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Starfleet Command

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Quicksilver / 14 Degrees East
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: PC

This ship combat game is based on the board game Star Fleet Battles (which licensed designs from Star Trek but is officially not Star Trek). This game has a lot to it. There are six races: Federation, Klingon, Romulans, Gorn, Lyran and Hydran, each with their own ships and campaign – every faction even has its own unique HUD and menu interface, a lot of effort clearly went into this game.

The same is true with the gameplay itself, there’s an immense amount of depth, so much you can do with how the weapons work, power distribution, using the transporter in offensive ways, having shuttles help you in combat and so much more. For someone who wants to feel like they’re fully managing a ship on their own, this is the kind of game for them. I personally did not enjoy it at all, with everything feeling extremely slow and sluggish, with battles feeling like endurance tests of not getting bored.

It’s not the game’s fault, really. It does what it sets out to do and does it well, it just really isn’t my kind of thing.

Star Trek: Hidden Evil

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Presto
• Publisher: Activision
• Platform: PC

This was the first one that was a nightmare to get running. Even though it’s on GoG, it requires audio hardware acceleration to be turned off, which isn’t an option on Windows 11. In the end, I had to install Windows 10 on a partition to get it working. Was it worth it? Definitely not.

Hidden Evil starts out quite promising. You play as Ensign Sovok, a human that was raised by Vulcans and is the first human to have mastered the Vulcan neck pinch (which you use in the stealth sections of the game). He serves on a station near Ba’ku, that has discovered ancient ruins near where the Son’a are settling, and they have requested Picard to look into it.

Leaving the Enterprise E and everyone but Data behind Picard has Sovok take him to Ba’ku to investigate, although the Son’a soon start a rebellion.

The game is played form a stationary camera. The controls aren’t as bad as I expected, and worked well when mapped to a controller. Aiming isn’t easy, so you’ll just flail and spam the shoot button until you hit something. There’s a few basic puzzles, but most of the game is just roaming around, occasionally shooting things. There’s a lot of pointless back and forth and padding to the game – which is astonishing for a game that is shorter than Insurrection.

The plot starts to pick up when you discover one of the ancient beings: one of the aliens from The Chase. Then, just as things get interesting, she’s immediately disposed of and instead the real villain is revealed: a big organic blob that spews out insect soldiers. Given time, this thing could overrun the entire galaxy. Romulans take her and then you have two really boring missions aimlessly roaming corridors on a Romulan space station and the Enterprise E – somehow they made exploring the Enterprise boring (also, only Picard and Data still talk to you on the Enterprise).

Hidden Evil feels like a game that had big plans, but the developers didn’t have the budget to do what they want. As a result, it feels like they gave up on their own story half way through this short game.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

The interface of this is the same as the Encyclopaedia. This has information on every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, including background information and the complete script for each episode. There is also a trailer for all episodes.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

The interface of this is the same as the Encyclopaedia. This has information on every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, including background information and the complete script for each episode. There is also a trailer for all episodes.

Star Trek: Trivia Challenge

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Sound Source
• Publisher: Sound Source
• Platform: PC

The sequel to Star Trek: The Game Show, this is worse in every possible way. John De Lancie as Q is gone as the host, and we instead have an extremely obnoxious guy that comes off as a bit creepy and very annoying. Deep Space Nine and Voyager have also been ditched. You can choose to have a quiz about The Original Series, The Next Generation or play a round of both.

In each round, you have four questions in four categories. Half of the categories are puns which often don’t make sense. The questions, as well as the possible answers, often feel rather immature – there are multiple questions about the “Red Shirts always die” joke (with the “correct” answer being a joke rather than an actual event) and a surprising number of questions include sexist remarks towards women, including one where you are asked what Uhura would do if you whispered the Swahili phrase “sisi ngono” in her ear. It essentially means “let’s have sex” with the answer being Uhura laughing and giving you a friendly slap.

While The Game Show is a lot of fun, this one is really not worth playing at all.

UNO: Star Trek

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Jim Keifer
• Publisher: Mattel
• Platform: Board Game

The popular game Uno where you’re trying to get rid of all your cards. This plays the same as the traditional Uno, but it has four unique wild cards.

Mind Meld lets you look at the next player’s hand, Live Long and Prosper lets you discard your entire hand and draw the same number of cards, Beam Me Up, Scotty can cancel the impact a card has on you and Double Tribble forces the next player to double the number of cards in their hand.

There was a second version of this released by Fundex, which only had the “Beam Me Up” extra wild card.

Star Trek Adventure: Serie Classica

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: Jim Keifer
• Publisher: Mattel
• Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Very little information available.

This game had a lot of ambition. It licensed all Trek shows, but despite having Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway on the box, is focused entirely on The Original Series.

You can play as either the Federation, Klingons, Gorn or Romulans with the main game focusing on an away mission, where you will face lots of dangers, overcome tests and fight enemies, but your ship will still have to face dangers of its own.

It looks like a very in depth board game, but there’s no way to know with the information available on the internet.

Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury

• Original Release: N/A (Cancelled 1999)
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Interplay
• Original Platform: PC
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

A point and click adventure game that boasted some very interesting graphics. It featured the whole cast from The Original Series (although due to declining health, Maurice LaMarche took over from DeForest Kelly part way through development). It was going to have six chapters, each focusing on a different member of the crew with an interconnected plot. It revolved around peace talks on Vulcan between them and Romulans, with the Romulan ambassador being murdered.

There are a few videos of cutscenes and a couple of trailers, but this YouTube video shows how the game would have played:

 

I've also recently discovered some old online browser games, so I'm posting them out of order.

 

Star Trek: First Contact: Battle The Borg

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: StarTrek.com
• Publisher: StarTrek.com
• Platform: Shockwave

I could only play a demo of this browser game, but the full game is probably more of the same thing, just with different map layouts or more Borg. You roam through the corridors of the Enterprise E, shooting Borg. After every shot, you need to remodulate phasers.

The game is made of pre-rendered backgrounds, so turning will “snap” to the direction. There are a few side routes to explore, although if you play the game properly you won’t get to see much, as the game ends when you’ve killed a small number of Borg. You can just run past them to see the full “map”, which consists of a few small sections that repeat endlessly.

For a quick distraction online, it’s not the worst game.

Namadra V Corridor

• Original Release: 1997
• Developer: StarTrek.com
• Publisher: StarTrek.com
• Platform: Shockwave

This Shockwave game from the Star Trek website puts you in the role of a Starfleet Academy Cadet tasked with completing a simulation where your ship is trapped in the deadly Namadra V Corridor. Not only are Klingons trying to attack you, but parts of the corridor will wear down your shields and hull. You need to get to the end of the corridor across different difficulty levels.

To move, you must press one of the six directions and set how many hexes to move (although it’s quicker to press “engage” multiple times than set a number). You want to try and stay in empty space as much as possible, but may have to go through some blue tiles (which zap your shields) – but stay away from the red ones as they’ll blow you up. You can also fire a probe in any direction which will reveal tiles until it reaches an obstacle.

It’s a very simple game that’s a bit annoying to control, but is fun for what it is. This game (and the whole Star Trek website) was initially exclusive people that used MSN as their internet provider.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Odo’s Investigation

• Original Release: 1997
• Developer: StarTrek.com
• Publisher: StarTrek.com
• Platform: Shockwave

This Shockwave game from the Star Trek website is a holodeck simulation to test your detective skills. You have 30 minutes to solve a crime by asking witnesses around the station followed by asking the three suspects a total of four questions between them.

Every time you change location, it takes 2 minutes, then talking to a witness takes 4 minutes. Unless you get lucky, you won’t be able to solve in on your first try as you need to find the one witness that disagrees with a question later on. Witnesses are also in different locations each time, so you need to remember who you talked to.

That said, even though Odo tells you off for accusing with no evidence if you get the suspect wrong, you don’t actually need to encounter the key witness for a correct answer, so you can get it right by random choice. You can even skip straight to accusing without talking to any witnesses. Of course, this ruins the game, but I imagine people did it to submit high scores after they had played.

There are three different scenarios in this, although instead of progressing through them, the scenario is picked randomly at the start.

 

[General Retro Discussion]

https://grimacesbirthday.com/

 

This McDonald's browser game is slightly more than it initially looks. It looks a bit like it's trying to be a Game Boy Colour game...but it actually is one. It's a brand new GBC game running in an emulator. People have managed to extract the ROM and it works on actual hardware, too.

[Sonic Superstars]

Looks interesting, hopefully coop doesn't make the levels too empty when playing alone.

 

It's a bit random how a new Sonic and Star Trek gane were both announced on the same day.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Starship Creator

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

This game lets you create your own starships. You start off with a popular starship class, such as Constitution, Galaxy, Intrepid or Defiant and then modify it in phases. The first phase is appearance, letting you toggle between different nacelles, hulls and saucers. Next up is the name, followed by internal systems that affect the stats.

One you’ve built a ship, you can send it on missions. The missions are fully automatic, so you just sit back and watch your creation at work (or put it in “stealth” mode and do something else).

While quite limited, it’s nice to see your creations flying around. I focused on three ships: the first was a Constitution class USS USS Columbia (I didn’t realise it automatically added the USS part), designed to look like a Constitution mixed with the NX class. Then a really silly looking Defiant, the Potato class USS Spud. Finally, a really cool looking Intrepid I called the USS Pathfinder.

Monopoly: Star Trek The Next Generation

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Hasbro
• Publisher: Hasbro
• Platform: Board Game

A Star Trek: The Next Generation themed version of Monopoly. These versions of Monopoly don’t do anything with the actual theme, it’s just the basic game with different pictures and player pieces. If you’ve played one licences Monopoly, you’ve played them all (other a small amount of special ones).

Monopoly is a terrible roll-and-move trading game. The mechanics were originally designed with a runaway winner in mind to demonstrate how bad landlords are, only for the game to be stolen by someone else and mass produced. The game is also often made worse by people incorporating “house rules”, such as putting fine/tax money under “free parking” – something that just makes the game drag even longer.

Almost everything you do is determined by rolling two dice. For the first few turns round the board, there is property you can either buy or send to auction (a rule most people forget) and the it’s the case of trying not to land on ren, although as it’s all dice based, there’s to tactics for doing so, other than not paying to leave jail early (it’s actually beneficial to stay in jail).

There’s also a lot of negotiating and trading properties with other players to try and create sets. In order to buy houses and hotels.

This version of Monopoly had something special promised: if you linked all four planned versions of Star Trek Monopoly, you can link them together via the wormhole in the corner of the board, but only one of these versions existed and it’s still just Monopoly, just one that drags on even more.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine & The Next Generation: The Board Game

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Component Game Systems
• Publisher: Component Game Systems
• Platform: Board Game

While the names suggest that these are different games, they’re part of the same system and are compatible with each other. These are the “Core Sets”, with plans for releasing additional starter kids (new factions) and reinforcement packs. The system for these games is called the “Component Games System” and was initially made for Babylon 5: The Board Game (which seems like it was quite popular), before expanding into more franchises.

The company shut down shortly after the Star Trek core sets were released, so none of the additional stuff was made. I do find the names of the games odd as they send the message that these are just basic individual cheap tie-in games. It needed a subtitle to indicate that they’re part of the same system.

The game itself is a 4x game. A turn consists of the following: bookkeeping (checking victory, gaining money, paying for repairs), building new ships and bases, moving then combat. It seems like a fairly typical game of the genre. There are different scenarios to choose from in the form of different map layouts, either a singular map or, if you want a proper DS9 experience, you can set up the gamma quadrant separately, using the wormhole to move between maps.

For testing it out, I could only find images of a limited amount of pieces, but was able to put together a small 2-player Maquis Vs Dominion game (and even then, I had to borrow a few map tiles from the imagery of the Babylon 5 game – the games use the same rules so you could probably combine them). The game is fine, but doesn’t really do anything special with the genre.

Star Trek: Insurrection: Son’a Ambush Adventure

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Last Unicorn Games
• Publisher: Last Unicorn Games
• Platform: Board Game

This board game was given out with Issue Inquest Games Magazine #46 (February 1999), and utilises the simple combat system from Star Trek: The Next Generation Roleplaying Game.

The goal of the game is to get at least one Ba’ku to the cave (although I added the extra challenge of seeing how many you can rescue). Drones will try to capture the Ba’ku while Son’a soldiers will attack the Enterprise crew (Picard, Data, Crusher, Worf and Troi). More drones appear at the end of each turn (which can be very dangerous, as if they land on a crew member, the crew member is lost), with three soldiers appearing on turn three.

You can only shoot at enemies one or to spaces away. Each crew member rolls a different number of dice (although onl the highest number is counted). The default you need to hit is an 8 for one square away or 10 for two squares away, you can also fire at additional targets, each one adding to the score you need to hit. The character’s phaser skill is added to the roll. One dice is the “Drama” dice. If this lands on a 6, you use both that and the next highest roll.

Everything is mostly down to Data, with Worf backing him up. If you can get them to be the main wall between the drones and the Ba’ku, you’re set, with Picard, Troi and Crusher getting any stragglers. I ended up getting all but one of the Ba’ku to the cave on my first try, with the very start of the game being the most difficult part. If you lose Data early on, you pretty much have no chance at stopping the drones from taking all of the Ba’ku.

Durotta

• Original Release: 1991 (appeared in Star Trek in 1998)
• Developer: Blaise Muller
• Publisher: Gigamic
• Original Platform: Board Game

Durotta is what the game Quarto will be called in the 24th century. Based on the Voyager Season 5 opening episode “Night”, with Tom Paris opening the game with the “Novakovich gambit”.

The object of Durotta is to place a piece in order to form a line of 4 with a single matching characteristic. These characteristics are: Tall/Short, Round/Square, Light/Dark and Full/Hollow. As long as one characteristic is consistent across 4 in a row, you’ll win. For example: if you place a tall piece to form a row of four tall pieces, you win, even if they are all a mixture of light and dark.

What makes the game special is that you don’t choose what piece you play: your opponent does, which makes the game incredibly strategic as you have to think about what moves your opponent can make when deciding what piece to hand them, but also keep an eye on the remaining pieces when placing one as you don’t want to force yourself to give your opponent the winning piece. We see Tom and B’elanna passing each other the pieces, so it seems like they were following the actual rules of the game (even if they made up names for moves).

I only tried this game because of it’s appearance in Voyager, but I really love it. It’s a brilliant game, and the mini version (the one I got) is nice and portable – it also looks fantastic and makes for a great display piece.

Star Trek First Contact: Aftermath

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1998)
• Developer: MicroProse
• Publisher: MicroProse
• Original Platform: PC
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

After making the Generations game, MicroProse set to work on a game for First Contact. Instead of retelling the events of the film, they opted to make a direct sequel: the Borg Queen had managed to copy her brain to the Enterprise’s computer, and the Enterprise kept some of the Borg (for either study, release or prisoners, it’s not clear). A few months after First Contact, this copy of the queen takes control of the Borg on the ship and starts assimilating.

The whole game would have been set on the Enterprise E (although from the screenshots, the holodeck was also used), with parts of the game being random to encourage replayability. You directly controlled all 7 of the main cast, swapping between them at will. You could also give them tasks, such as researching technology to stop the Borg.. There was an additional tactical interface where you order around 49 other crewmembers.

The game itself would have taken around 5 hours for a successful campaign, although from the sounds of the game I would imagine some playthroughs might get to a point where beating the Borg would be impossible (due to bad planning), requiring a restart. It sounded like an interesting idea, but was cancelled when a deal with Activision was made for Star Trek games.

Star Trek: Birth of The Federation

• Original Release: 1999
• Developer: MicroProse
• Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
• Platform: PC

Birth of the Federation is a turn based 4x strategy game (think of a turn-based Stellaris). You can play as the Federation (although it’s just humans), Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians of Ferrengi.

My first attempt ended in tragedy my science ship was lost to a neutron star pretty much straight away, then a major accident happened at another colony and I seemed to not have the dilithium required to build more. I used the game to learn the other parts of the game ready for the next game.

The start of the game is all about colonising systems, sustaining them (either manually or using the handy auto builder). Spacedocks are the most important element as they expand your reach, letting you colonise more star systems. Once you encounter other races, you can offer messages of peace, friendship, give gifts, demand goods or declare war. Unfortunately, the diplomacy is the weakest element. With the major races, it’s pretty much buying time before war, while with minor races if you’re lucky or throw enough money at them, you can get a system and possibly a couple of ships added to your faction as they join you.

There are two game types: control 60% of the galaxy or wipe out two factions that are set as your rivals. At some point, you’re going to need to take over systems owned by other factions, and you can only do so by wiping out all life in the system, which seems a bit overboard. This will anger other factions, so the game seems to be building up your recourses and ships enough to take on everyone near the end. The final part of the games (either winning or losing) seems anti-climatic, as it seems to be having a fleet bomb a defenceless planet.

Ship battles can be fought though a turn-based tactical screen, with some tactics working well over others. It mainly comes down to having more and better ships, though.

Birth of a Federation has a lot of depth, and I suspect would have been great when it came out. The genre has evolved a lot since then, so I wouldn’t recommend it now.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Generations

• Original Release: 1997
• Developer: MicroProse
• Publisher: MicroProse
• Platform: PC

This game is definitely intriguing. It very loosely follows the story of Star Trek Generations, with Soren trying to destroy stars in order to change the path of the mysterious energy ribbon called the Nexus. In this game, Soren needs to destroy multiple starts to get what he wants, and you need to stop him – you can even prevent him from destroying the Amargosa star.

Most of the game is played in a first person view. The controls definitely feel very dated, but are one of the things that makes the game interesting. The directional buttons move forward/backwards and turns while the mouse aims the cursor. On the bottom of the screen, you control your inventory, scanning and map. The big square in the middle will show you objects you can interact with when you get close to them, which is a really nice touch. On the top of the screen, your phaser will aim at that part of the screen. It’s very different to the first person controls we’re used to now.

In these levels you’ll shoot through enemies and solve puzzles. Sometimes, you’ll even beam down in disguise and can do a lot before you have to resort to shooting. The graphics are extremely charming and are surprisingly nice to look at. When you get hurt a lot, you’ll be beamed up and the mission will have failed – however, you can fail a few missions before you lose the game.

Between missions, you’ll use Stellar Cartography to scan planets and stars in order to work out where you next have to go. You’ll also sometimes encounter enemy ships and use a pretty poor interface to fight them with. All the good parts are in the missions.

The missions are quite interesting. One has you infiltrate a Romulan base as Troi, one involves Crusher investigating a living planet and fighting giant antibodies (it reminds me a bit of the Voyager episode “Macrocosm” and the Chodak from Future’s Past/Final Unity even pop up.

Eventually, you’ll reach Veridian III. As Geordi is never captured in this game, things play out differently. Picard ends up in the Nexus (which is just a flashing blank screen as he asks Kirk for help), then Kirk delays Soren and falls off a bridge. Soren then beams to the Enterprise and initiates a warp core overload. After separating the saucer, Picard beams to the stardrive section and stops Soren from destroying the saucer (although he does enough damage that it has to crash land) before finding an escape pod with a sleeping Spot and watching the stardrive section blow up in a very impressive cutscene that looks like it’s actually using the studio models.

Although that’s not the only ending – you can actually fully defeat Soren. He brings a large fleet with him to Veridian III, but if you manage to disable his ship, he’ll self-destruct. The Enterprise D warps off unscathed and Kirk will still be in the Nexus.

Star Trek: Captain’s Chair

• Original Release: 1997
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

Another interactive CD-ROM, this time focusing on the bridges of the original Enterprise, Enterprise D, Defiant, Voyager and Enterprise E (plus a hidden Klingon Bird of Prey bridge). Each bridge has a lot of locations to view from (in 360 degrees) and you can zoom into every single panel on the bridge. Some of them have buttons you can press, and even a couple of simple games.

Sulu, Worf, Sisko, Janeway and Riker all give tours of the bridges, talking about each station. Janeway’s tour is the most fascinating, as it’s written from the perspective of before the ship launched, so the only other character mentioned is Harry Kim (none of the other people officially assigned to Voyager are part of the main cast). It’s also referred to “The Voyager” a lot, which sounds odd.

Kotra

• Original Release: Seen on-screen in 1997
• Developer: Abayomi, Dean Jones
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Original Platform: Board Game

A Cardassian board game seen in the DS9 episode “Empok Nor”, a game about “about bold strategy and decisive action” according to Garak. I manged to find some rules on DeviantArt and have made a few changes to them myself.

When you attack an opponent piece, you have to attack it with a piece that is the same or higher rank, or else you’ll use yours. The key thing, however, is that you can’t see what ranks any of the pieces are as they’re printed on the bottom of each piece. You can check yours whenever you want, and both pieces are revealed when an attack happens – so you’ll know what the winner is, but you’ll have to keep track of it yourself.

The aim of the game is to attack your opponents capital piece. One clue regarding this is that the capital piece can’t move, so you’ll be keeping an eye for pieces your opponent doesn’t touch – but also be wary as there are also mine pieces that also can’t move and will take out both themselves and any piece attacking them (except for the Garresh, a low ranking piece that can defuse mines).

While taking the opponent’s capital ends the game, the winner is the player who got the most pieces based on points earned during the game and the pieces you have captured. The capital is worth a lot of points, but if you aren’t careful you can still lose.

Star Trek: Voyager: Retribution

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1997)
• Developer: Looking Glass
• Publisher: Viacom
• Original Platform: PC
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

This was an adventure game based on Star Trek Voyager and likely would have played similar to Seep Space Nine: Harbinger. The plot involved an away team being captured by the Kazon and over the three chapters, you would encounter two new races. It was supposed to feature the full cast of the show, but ended up getting cancelled.

Lots of the sets were faithfully recreated in 3D for the game, likely with the intention to be used for screenshots and converted into the backdrops for the game (the models are far too detailed for computers). It looks like a lot of Voyager was completed, along with an alien ship and planet. The artist, Mark Lizotte, had access to the set blueprints and spent two days on the sets measuring and checking colours against samples to get them spot on.

In response to the game being cancelled, a few of the developers (including the game’s writer, Ken Levine) left the company and formed Irrational Games, making System Shock 2 and BioShock.

Star Trek Pinball

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Sales Curve
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: PC

A very basic pinball game. It features three tables (one exclusive to two players), which are designed to be like real life tables (though not based on actual ones) rather than taking advantage of being a video game. The tables are fairly generic and don’t really make much use of the Star Trek license other than imagery.

The two main tables both have the same problem – they have a ramp or button directly above the centre of t

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: MicroProse
• Publisher: MicroProse
• Platform: PC

This game is an interesting bit of gaming history: the first game ever released using the Unreal engine, coming out before Unreal itself. It uses a beta version of the engine, so is quite buggy, and the gameplay often feels exactly like Unreal, as it’s a first person shooter that uses a lot of the same code – the movement, some level elements (such at mine carts attached to rails above them) and enemy AI are straight from Unreal.

You play as a new recruit for the Klingon Honor Guard when your training gets interrupted because the Klingon High Council has been bombed, with Gowron injured. Kurn (Worf’s brother, played by Tony Todd) and a Dahar Master send you on a quest to work out who is behind it. Naturally, this involves killing lots of enemies, which mainly consist of Klingons and Andorian pirates.

The graphics are good for the time, although most of the game is dark and full of browns, a lot of the levels merge together. A lot of levels are confusing mazes where you spend most of your time hunting for hard to see keys or buttons to progress. A few standout ones are set on space stations and ships. Because the structure is confined by the outside shape, the layouts make a lot more sense. The game has a lot of levels, and most of them end up merging together.

When not aimlessly walking around, the game is a lot of fun. Stabbing foes with a bat’leth is enjoyable, with lots of colourful blood spraying around (there are no humans in the game so it avoids having red blood). Most of the other weapons are fairly boring, with the exception of a disc weapon which launces a bouncing disc that destroys entire rooms of enemies. You can also find some gadgets to use, such as a deployable camera (never found a use for it) and mag boots, which are vital for going on spacewalks in some levels.

Klingon Honour Guard is fun in parts, but often frustrating. I feel like it goes on a bit too long, with the most enjoyable levels being close to each other in the middle of the game. It also doesn’t really capture the feel of the Star Trek universe. You see Klingons and Andorians, but they don’t really act like them. The main character also repeatedly shouts “I will cut you up like gach” at your foes, which I found odd because Klingons eat them alive, so there’s no cutting up.

Star Trek: The Game Show

• Original Release: 1998
• Developer: Sound Source
• Publisher: Sound Source
• Platform: PC

A trivia game with some good production values, as it’s hosted by Q and Q. Q is played by John de Lancie with another Q as his sidekick (played by Karen Cornwell, this is her only acting role). All the questions and answers are read out, so there’s plenty of voice acting from the two, including plenty of quips. There’s even an annoying audience member that blurts out the answer if you run out of time. The quiz is split into four sections: Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Gamma Quadrant and Delta Quadrant. The show covers TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and the movies.

In the Alpha Quadrant, the questions are about the characters in Star Trek. A wheel will spin and land on a division and you’ll be asked a question about someone from it. There’s plenty of variety and some interesting questions. In Beta Quadrant, the game reveals five clues one at a time and you need to type in the answer, either an alien race or a character’s name. The clues are quite well worded and there are some very obscure characters.

Gamma Quadrant focuses on command problems and how situations in the shows were solved. There’s also some interactivity as you can forfeit a question and send it to another player. Getting a question wrong will get you negative points in this round, so you don’t want to just guess.

The final round, Delta Quadrant, has five different styles, one chosen at random in each game, each loosely based on each of the shows (with the fifth representing the films).

While most of the questions are interesting and delve into a lot of deep Trek references, I did find one mistake: a question asks what Scotty used to construct the tank for carrying whales. Plexiglass wasn’t an option – instead the game wanted transparent aluminium (which Scotty traded the formula in order to get the Plexiglass).

Overall, this is a very entertaining trivia game.

 

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Borg

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Simon & Schuster
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

The second interactive movie game. This follows Cadet Furlong who is being sent to a starbase ahead of a Borg invasion 10 years after the Battle of Wolf 359. Wishing he was fighting the Borg instead, as he lost his father at the Battle of Wolf 359, the cadet ends up being visited by Q. Q offers him a chance at saving his father and sends the cadet to the past, taking the place of the security officer and Q taking place of the medic.

The whole game is made up of live action footage, and John de Lancie gets plenty of screen time and is wonderful through the whole thing. The cast of new characters are also really good, too. At points in the “film” you get to make choices or solve puzzles, with Q resetting you if you mess up. I found that I much preferred picking the “wrong” options so I could see all the footage – you can never get tired of Q teasing you.

Because of Q resetting things, I think this works better than the Klingon game. I also really like that they make use of the bad choices as you sometimes need information from them to progress though the correct path. Unfortunately, the game is a lot of hassle to get working on a modern PC, so unless it gets easier, I would recommend watching the game on YouTube instead – treat it as an extra episode of Star Trek, as that’s what it essentially is.

 

Deep Space Nine Entertainment Utility

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Sound Source
• Publisher: Sound Source
• Platform: PC

This is a collection of resources for Windows 3.1/95 PCs. It features system sounds, wallpapers and a screensaver. It also features a jigsaw puzzle with four puzzles.

Star Trek Voyager Entertainment Utility

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Sound Source
• Publisher: Sound Source
• Platform: PC

This is a collection of resources for Windows 3.1/95 PCs. It features system sounds, wallpapers and a screensaver. It also features a jigsaw puzzle with four puzzles.

 

Star Trek: First Contact Portable Arcade Game

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: MGA
• Publisher: MGA
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

An LCD game based on First Contact. By far the best thing about this is the case of the device, which is a shiny Starfleet combadge. The game itself has the Enterprise E blasting lots and lots of Borg Cubes. From the looks of the various imagery and video I cand find, I do wonder if this is the same coding as the Grandstand LCD but with different sprites.

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation Collectible Dice Game

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Dan Verssen
• Publisher: Five Rings
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Not enough information to recreate.

While I was able to recreate some of the dice used in this in Tabletop Simulator, I can’t find enough information on all the starter dice or all the needed symbols to make a version that can be played.

For the Collectible Dice Game, you had to buy two starter packs (the main two were Enterprise E and Borg Sphere) each game came with what you needed for one player. Some dice represent shields and status which you change manually, while others you roll to determine their strength. You could get booster packs to have alternative dice with different values to use instead.

You had dice that reflected the four areas of shields, the warp core output and integrity and power reserves. Then you had movement, repair and weapon dice for your main actions. Each ship also had special and command dice with unique abilities. It sounds like it would be a fairly in-depth game and could use different dice to take more risks – for example, a phaser that does a lot more damage, but is far more likely to miss.

 

Star Trek: The Card Game

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Jeff Grubb, Don Perrin, Margaret Weis
• Publisher: Fleer
• Original Platform: Board Game

While this is another collectible card game, this is much less in depth than the Customizable Card Game. This one focuses on The Original series where each player takes turns trying to complete missions. The missions, plots and outcomes are cards and if the current player chooses not to play one, the opponent gets to add one. Opponents can also add challenges to make things more difficult for you – but then your rewards for completing them are also increased.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are also not in anyone’s deck. Instead, they are part of the “core crew” (along with the Enterprise) that both players can select for missions, although at the cost of experience. Completing missions will earn you experience and the goal is to be the first to gather 25 experience.

 

Star Trek: Battle of the Borg

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Playmates
• Publisher: Playmates
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: No prototypes

Playmates internal product data showed off this Star Trek board game in development for release with the upcoming Star Trek film (which would have been First Contact). The artwork for the box must have been made before the Enterprise E was officially show, so they used a Galaxy class ship instead.

The information on the box mock-up is all placeholder text, but one feature of the board game was that the mini-figures that came with the came would be poseable.

 

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

• Original Release: 1997
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: PC

A game that will be sharing a name with a Star Trek show. Starfleet Academy is sort of a reimagining of Starfleet Academy Bridge Simulator on SNES/32X, as it features the same style of gameplay and some of the same cadets, but with a new story, new characters and a completely different set of missions.

The first things that strikes you is the live action cutscenes. These often look odd as none of the actors were filmed on set, they were instead filmed separately and imposed onto the backgrounds. The cutouts can be very rough at times, but its somehow still very charming, especially as everyone is taking it seriously, including William Shatner, Walter Koenig, and George Takei in their last official live action appearances. You also get to make choices which impacts your ratings – if you don’t make the right ones, you won’t get to play a bonus mission at the end of the game.

The game uses a mixture of a joystick (or controller) and keyboard and it works quite well, even if it takes a bit of getting used to. It offers a lot more control than the SNES/32X games, but at the same time it also feels like you’re doing everything yourself instead of commanding a crew. The combat is still only forward phasers/torpedoes, but it feels a lot more fluid than any of the previous space combat, and it helped out by a full screen view that displays all needed information.

While this further separates you from the crew, it’s very much required for playing the game. The missions are almost entirely combat related, with a few where you can avoid encounters. None of the missions paritcuarly stood out to me, other than one where you casually pass through the Galactic Barrier with a really nice cutscene.

Starfleet Academy is an interesting game, especially with the cutscenes. The gameplay can be frustrating at times (especially as you can very quickly have systems knocked out, a big pain if it’s impulse or weapons), but for the most part it’s fun to play.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity

• Original Release: 1995
• Developer: Spectrum HoloByte
• Publisher: Spectrum HoloByte
• Platform: MS-DOS

This feels like a Next Generation movie. It’s a point and click adventure that starts off with a few loose plot points and missions that all start coming together as the Federations, Romulans and a newly discovered race called the Chodak (who also appear in Future’s Past with a similar plot) race to find a device that can alter reality anywhere in the galaxy. It’s all voiced by the cast of The Next Generation, with all the main crew getting pivotal moments in the story (although Troi’s main input is astrology, her empath and counselling isn’t really used in the game).

The game has multiple levels of depth and control. On the Enterprise, you can choose to manually alter repair teams and power output or let La Forge handle it for you. In ship combat, you can control the Enterprise manually or delegate it to Worf. Although the combat is very broken on modern systems, so letting Worf handle it is the only option (the system looks quite in depth). Ships exploding also tends to crash he game, so be sure to save, but luckily the Enterprise D mainly faces stripped down Romulan warbirds and Worf handles them with ease – although one odd thing about this game is that every enemy self destructs once defeated.

On away missions, you can also manually select an away team or let the game choose for you. While the first is nice for hearing different dialogue, you often need a specific character to perform a task and going back to the Enterprise and returning is a big faff, so it’s best to stick to the game’s recommendation. I think it rotates the cast quite nicely so they all have a part to play.

For the point and click puzzles, they start off great with lots of interactions that make sense, unfortunately the game devolves to extremely obscure solutions and objects you interact with can blend in with the background. It even has multiple moments where you can fail the game, but the game doesn’t tell you and lets you carry on. Although sometimes there are multiple solutions. There’s one part where you get to solve a puzzle if you pick up a random bit of metal (a paper clip), other wise you’ll have to shoot some sensors.

Even with those issues, A Final Unity is a great game and is well worth it for the story. It’s a shame that this hasn’t gotten a re-release that makes it easier to play (installing the game is a faff) and fixes up a few of the issues.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Grandstand LCD)

• Original Release: 1995
• Developer: Grandstand
• Publisher: Grandstand
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

Another obscure Star Trek LCD game. This one looks like it was sold under both the Grandstand and Tiger names, both with the same design. It’s also different to the previous Tiger handheld, although a similar idea. In this you just have to dodge to blow up asteroids.

 

Star Trek Omnipedia

• Original Release: 1995
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC
• Also Known as: Star Trek Encyclopaedia
• Version played: Encyclopaedia 3.0

Originally released under the name Star Trek Omnipedia before being renamed Star Trek Encyclopaedia. I “played” the 3.0 version of this, covering everything up to the DS9 episode “The Adversary”. There are a few images and short videos. While the LCARS interface is nice, it isn’t easy to navigate or search.

Trivial Pursuit The Sci-Fi Master Game: Star Trek Edition

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Telstar Video
• Publisher: Telstar Video
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand (plus converting the VHS)

A VHS add-on to Trivial Pursuit. This features clips and questions from the original series plus the six films.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Harbinger

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Stormfront Studios
• Publisher: Viacom New Media
• Platform: MS-DOS

DS9 Harbinger is a Myst-style adventure game. Each part of the level is made up of still images, with you clicking the edge of the screen to move around and turn in very limited places. This allows the game to look very impressive visually, especially in screenshots. The 3D models of the characters look vert impressive for the time and everyone is wonderfully voice acted, using the original cast of DS9.

You play a diplomat named Bannick, called to DS9 to assist an ambassador in speaking with a new alien race called the Scythians. These aliens speak in an unusual manner and nobody other than the ambassador has been able to figure it out. As you reach DS9, you get attacked by drones (in an impressive FMV cutscene) and crash land. The drones stat building up to attack DS9. To make matters worse, when you visit the ambassador you discover that he has been murdered. You need to solve the murder, work out how to talk to the Scythians and find a way to stop the drones.

The part of the game on DS9 is great (once you get your head around navigating the station), with lots of conversation options and an intriguing mystery. Puzzles are mostly self-enclosed, leaving you to focus more on the narrative mystery.

In a few parts of the game, you have to man the weapons of DS9 (and a runabout). These sections are just click to shoot, but are surprisingly difficult and not fun at all.

The latter half of the game, once you leave DS9, is much more of a challenging puzzle game like Myst, where you have to navigate a maze (not easy due to how you move, working out how to ger around DS9 was difficult enough), and is very much a chore, especially as you have large periods with no talking. That said, working out how to trick the AIs in charge and talking to them towards the ends is a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the full cast of DS9 for this game, so O’Brien and Bashir are said to be on a mission (Worf hasn’t joined the cast yet). You do get to spend plenty of time with Sisko, Odo, Dax, Quark and Kira, though, so there’s still a lot of interaction with the crew.

Star Trek: Klingon

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Simon & Schuster
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

This is an interactive movie game, where you watch clips before being presented with a choice. Where you click on (or choosing not to click) will either end the game or let you proceed.

This is presented as a holonovel made by Gowron (Robert O’Reilly), where he wants to teach weaklings about how to be a true Klingon so you can be a worthy opponent. In the holonovel, you take the place as a Klingon boy on his Rite of Ascension when his father stops an assassination attempt on Gowron. You then embark on a journey to find out who is behind everything.

The game aspect of this is quite poor, as all but the right option lead to someone shouting at you and the game resetting to just before – the Borg game is much more creative in terms of using the interactive movie mechanic. The story, however, is interesting with some fun moments. It’s a good insight into Klingon culture. On YouTube, there are two ways of watching this: if you want to enjoy the story, you can watch the “correct path” version, which turns it into a fun Klingon episode of Star Trek. You can also watch a version with all the failure clips, with lots of wonderful overacting.

Star Trek: Klingon Language Lab

• Original Release: 1996
• Developer: Simon & Schuster
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

Released alongside Star Trek: Klingon, this software is an introduction to the Klingon language. It features Robert O’Reilly as Gowron who reads out all the Klingon words and phrases – each one has a video of him saying it, too. It has right categories, each with its own quiz to test your skills, which seem on a similar level to Duolingo.

It also features a section that helps you with the individual phonemes. While there’s only a limited amount of words and phrases, it’s a decent introductory language tool.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Falomir Juegos)

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Falomir Juegos
• Publisher: Falomir Juegos
• Original Platform: Board Game

A Star Trek board game that was only released in Spanish – using Google Translate I could work out how to play the game. It’s essentially a variation on Ludo, which does kind of fit with the shape of DS9. The rules, however, don’t fit such a simple roll and move game.

The objective is to get to “Ops”. Your staring space has the direction you move in and you will continue to move this way until you land on a white “P” square. The main arms of DS9 are heavily guarded, so you can’t move inside that way, instead you need to land on the “R” (for Runabout), which puts you on the LR spot to move into the centre. You then need to land on the P1 square to move further in – if you overshoot, you move back to the outer ring via the arms. Once in the middle, you keep circling until you land on your colour to progress inwards until you reach OPS.

Some tiles are marked “C”, which signifies Cardassians (the story is that you’re taking it back from them). This will cause you to miss turns but also collect attack tokens. If the person that reaches Ops have 5, they are the sole winner. If they have fewer, then other players are runner up alongside them.

Tridimensional Chess

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Irving A Feinberg
• Publisher: Franklin Mint
• Original Platform: Board Game

The game from The Original Series finally got an official release in 1994 from Franklin Mint. While the game looks great in Tabletop Simulator, it’s quite fiddly. I managed to find an Android app called “Tri D Chess” which has multiple rulesets and lets you play against an AI.

Tridimsnional Chess looks a lot more complicated than it actually is. The basic rules of Chess apply. The board is a bit longer and where the sections that overlap, you can choose which level you want to finish your move on. The small bords at the end can also be moved, but only when there’s a single playing piece on them. It’s an interesting chess variant, and one that is visually stunning to look at.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A World for all Seasons

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1994)
• Developer: Spectrum HoloByte
• Publisher: Spectrum HoloByte
• Original Platform: 3DO
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

A choose-your-own adventure game with 3D characters and pre-rendered backgrounds. There was an article about it in Electronic Gaming Monthly, which has some screenshots, but not a lot of information about what the story was going to be about. It used some impressive 3D renders to use as 2D backgrounds, so only the characters were actually rendered by the 3DO console. These character models look like they were later used for cutscenes in A Final Unity.

The screenshots show off a very colourful alien city and a desolate looking world with interesting structures, along with some odd-looking aliens. The main rooms of the Enterprise D were also rendered, with a couple of views from the bridge, including one where you select options from the tactical console and an image of the viewscreen showing ship combat.

It looked like a very ambitious game, but the constant changes to the 3DO hardware before launch likely made development very difficult (the console had one game when it launched), and companies started dropping it as the Saturn and PlayStation arrived shortly after.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Hunt

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1994)
• Developer: Paramount Interactive
• Publisher: Paramount Interactive
• Original Platform: PC
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

This one seemed like it was quite far in development when it was cancelled, background, art and animations were around “95%” complete according to someone who worked on the game.

The game takes place on DS9 where you can play as one of four characters: A human Federation officer called Lt. Delgado, a female Klingon called Garrudann, a male Ferengi called Bixtur or a male Banjoran called Salu Marn. You could interact with the crew from the TV show to solve an adventure. According to a description on the poster, the plot revolved around a thief with stolen treasure that had “mysterious power”, with Cardassians wanting to retrieve it for their own use and the Ferengi wanting to steal it for their own profit. You could interact with characters from the show which were claimed to be “realistically animated in stereo sound” (although it’s unknown if voice acting was recorded or even planned.

Deep Space Nine: The Hunt would have a lot of character interaction and an open-ended story structure, which presumably means multiple endings and possibly failure endings, as well as “cinematic special effects”. The poster even shows the box art for it, which had a unique box design which was later re-used for Deep Space Nine: Harbinger.

Out of all the cancelled Star Trek games, this is the one that I wish happened the most. Hopefully more information about the game can be uncovered, especially as so much art was completed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Borg Q-Uest

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1994)
• Developer: Decipher
• Publisher: Decipher
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: No leaked prototypes.

This was a sequel to Klingon Challenge and would have been another VCR board game. In this, Q sends three random Enterprise D crewmembers on a quest to retrieve the Orb of Knowledge, with the Borg arriving in one hour’s time. It featured John de Lancie as Q and was supposed to be light hearted, with Q wearing different costumes such as a referee, Data-like makeup, Starfleet Uniform and even a referee.

The game was near completion when it was cancelled, meaning all this footage of Q existed somewhere. A single image from the game was reused for the Customisable Card Game.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator (32X)

• Original Release: 1995
• Developer: High Voltage Software
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: Sega 32X

The missions of this are similar to the SNES game. It was made for the Sega 32X add-on for the Mega Drive. The biggest difference for this is the graphics, which look much cleaner and less pixelated and the 3D models have a lot more texture and detail to them.

Playing this game on a standard 3-button Mega Drive controller is a nightmare as you need to press combinations for basic features, but the 6-button is good – although using the face buttons to tilt instead of shoulder buttons isn’t as intuitive (that said, you rarely need to do it). The one thing I couldn’t work out to do is how to pause the game.

Another addition to this version is pool, which you can play against your fellow cadets (or a second player). There’s not really a lot to it, it’s just a standard top down pool game.

The control nitpicks aside, this is a really nice version of the game. The wider screen gives a bigger view. The bridge itself looks more like an actual starship bridge rather than the more video game look of the SNES one.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Crossroads of Time

• Original Release: 1995
• Developer: Novotrade
• Publisher: Playmates
• Platform: SNES, Mega Drive
• Version Played: Mega Drive

This Deep Space Nine game for the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive is a 2D platformer. There’s lots of running, jumping as well as shooting Bajorans, Cardassians and….bats, the ultimate “we can’t think of anything else” enemy type used in many licensed games of this era.

Like many of those games, this one isn’t very good. It has nice graphics and some really great music (although it really doesn’t fit the game), the levels are just confusing mazes with some backtracking to get keys, rooms and doors that look similar and some even have time limits. The story itself is decent, with a group of Bajoran extremists trying to destroy DS9, and they even create a story reason to jump into Sisko’s traumatic past (that said, it is a bit of a weak reason).

At the start of each chapter, you need to investigate around DS9, you get to explore the promenade and ops and talk to the characters. These parts of the game are great. It’s a shame that the game wasn’t more of a mystery and puzzle with a bit of platforming and shooting in between, instead of the opposite way around.

In previous write-ups, I’ve treated different versions as different games, but the differences here are much smaller. The biggest difference is the music. While the rocking tunes of the Mega Drive version don’t fit, the music is just as jarring in the SNES version but also sound awful. You can also shoot diagonally downwards, so there’s a small extra bit at the start of the Bajoran level where you shoot some rats.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Also yeah, the SNES version of Starfleet Academy is mad impressive.  It's nothing like the proper PC release of course (which incidentally is probably my favourite Star Trek game ever made), but it's a huge accomplishment for the SNES nonetheless; and not a single Super FX chip in sight!

Definitely great for the SNES. There's another version of it that looks even better (although on more advanced but cobbled together hardware that nobody bought). The Starfleet Academy and Future's Past games on SNES both seem like precursors to PC games - elements of their plots and ideas were re-used in much bigger games. 

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future’s Past

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Spectrum HoloByte
• Publisher: Spectrum HoloByte
• Platform: SNES

This one took a bit of getting used to due to some fiddly buttons and confusing menus. The Enterprise is monitoring Romulan Activity in the Neutral Zone and ends up in an epic quest to be chosen to be given an extremely powerful weapon – one that the Romulans and a new race called the Chodak.

The game starts off with a view of the Enterprise D bridge. Here you look around at the various stations. Some (like the Computer and Sensors) give you additional information, the Briefing Room has Picard explain the current objective to the crew (a really nice touch) and the main one – the conn lets you set a course. There are a lot of places to choose from, although there’s not much reason to visit most, not to mention that the game bugs you if you’re not doing the current objective.

While at warp, you may randomly encounter enemy ships. The focus on ship combat is a top-down view and is very basic and quite annoying. You’re also supposed to keep an eye out for a little notification that the enemy ship is surrendering (although there’s no penalty for blowing them up). When you get damaged, your ship’s systems will go down and you’ll have to assign resources to each one. You can go to a starbase to completely repair (which also creates a password to save the game), but I found that as most of the game it was navigation or engines that were down, you just had to leave the game for a few minutes and let the admiral yell at you for not doing the current objective.

When you go on an away mission, you get to pick your away team (in most cases). You’ll want to take Data on every possible mission as he has the best stats and can see in the dark, which is the only ability that makes a difference (and only on one mission). Some crew completely lack phasers (like Dr. Crusher). I found myself using Data, La Forge, Worf and a random ensign on most missions.

These missions involve a lot of shooting, some puzzle solving and a lot of aimlessly walking around the maze-like levels. There’s some interesting ideas here, as you can swap between the away team and take them separate routes or command them to follow one person.

I feel like a sequel for this could have had the potential to fix the issues with this game. There’s some good ideas, but ultimately isn’t executed very well.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Echoes from the Past

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Spectrum HoloByte
• Publisher: Spectrum HoloByte
• Platform: Mega Drive

This is a game heavily based on Future’s Past, but considering they both came out only a few months apart, there are a surprising amount of differences.

The game starts off with a lovely pixelated recreation of the opening of The Next Generation, which makes it feel even more like an episode of the show. There’s also a lot more dialogue in this game as the characters you meet have conversations with Picard instead of just a single paragraph at the end. Missions are mostly the game, but with slightly different layouts that make things look slightly more like actual locations, although they’re still difficult mazes. Using items is more fiddly due to the lack of shoulder buttons.

The combat is mostly the same, but ships seem to move a lot faster. This causes the sensor grid to zoom in an out a lot, which I found to be extremely nauseating. If you can put up with that, I do recommend this version due to the improved dialogue – with the exception of one change where the mission is something given to Picard and not the crew (the objective recaps now take place in the ready room instead of the briefing room).

Star Trek Generations: Beyond the Nexus

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: : Absolute Entertainment
• Publisher: Absolute Entertainment
• Platform: Game Gear

A game loosely based on Star Trek Generations. It uses the Advanced Holodeck Tutorial as a basis and adds more modes (although more minigames) to kind of tell the story. It starts off on the Enterprise B on it’s maiden voyage when it suddenly gets attacked by Tholians.

The ship combat is a very simplified version of the previous game. There’s no commands to give anyone, just turn and shoot. It’s also much easier as you rarely get hit, but combat still drags on. After this, you need to track a distress call by playing a minigame similar to Mastermind where you enter symbols and the game tells you how many are the correct symbol and how many are in the right place. The third minigame has you flying through squares, with another involving you laying down pipes. After doing a few of these a few times, the game cuts forward to the Enterprise D, skipping Kirk’s apparent death.

The Enterprise D section follows the same minigames, and adds some basic top-down on foot-sections where you shoot enemies as you run to Soren. You do a few at Amargosa Station, track the Klingon Bird of Prey, do a few more, blow up the Bird of Prey and get a message saying that the Enterprise had to crash on the planet but everyone is saved. Considering the game is called “Beyond the Nexus”, there’s nothing actually involving the Nexus.

However, you do get a screen saying that there’s a hidden final level, but can only access if you can name the ship that rescued the crew at the end of the film. This last mission is just another code breaking minigame followed by a final still of Picard and the description of “The Body of James T Kirk is laid to rest”, even though he’s not been mentioned since he fixed something on the Enterprise B.

Beyond the Nexus is a very easy minigame collection that poorly tells the story of Star Trek Generations. The most disappointing thing is that the Generations theme music isn’t even in the game.

There’s also a Game Boy version which is the exact same game but with fewer colours (it supports colour for the Super Game Boy, but still not as advanced as the Game Gear version).

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: SNES

I was quite impressed by this game. It’s a series of 20 simulations (plus some bonus ones) where you command a team of Starfleet Academy students. The main buttons are used for flying (thankfully you can turn off inverted controls) and weapons, with the L and R buttons being used to spin the ship, which is more control than previous games. Press the select button and the viewscreen will bring up a menu where you can give commands to your crew – sensors, red alert, hailing and things like that.

The missions start off with little focus on combat, one has you moving a radioactive asteroid from the planet, the most interesting one has you investigate a protostar which ends up with contact with a new species, others have you investigate missing/destroyed ships. A few of them let you complete your objective and leave an area without defeating the enemies there.

Each mission concludes with the lesson it was built to teach, and will also give you a score based on your performance, telling you anything you did wrong (I kept forgetting to cancel red alert when going back to starbase). If you fail and get a score of zero, you’re supposed to carry on finishing the current set of 5 missions and redoing all of them if you don’t reach 75% (or just use the passwords to reload the mission – which makes it strange that it isn’t just an option).

After you complete the 20 missions you get your final mission: deliver some supplies. When you start, you get hailed by a ship called the Kobayashi Maru, which is losing power but has stranded into the neutral zone. I was surprised that you aren’t forced into combat and I was able to choose the option of getting higher ups to ask the Klingons to help, as I don’t think the mission is worth starting a war over. You can also enter codes in the character creation (it’s just male/female and some pre-set names) to unlock names. If you play as James T. Kirk, you get to play an alternate version of the test.

While the later mission are mores combat focused, which still feels a bit clunky as you can only fire directly forwards, I found it to be a mostly enjoyable game. It also has some very early 3D, and they’ve done well with the limited resources of the SNES.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Imergy
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Platform: PC

An interactive tour of the USS Enterprise D, featuring the voices of Majel Barrett Roddenberry and Johnathan Frakes. There’s not a lot of “game” here, but it provides some nice views of all the main rooms of the Enterprise D, each room having multiple 360 degrees viewpoints to look at. There’s a lot of technical information to read and a couple of panels you can activate.

One thing I quite like is that when you change location, you get a video of walking to the corridor and into a turbolift. Makes everything feel more connected and like you’re on an actual tour of the ship.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Blinded by the Light

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Joe Edkin, Kim Yale
• Publisher: Tiger
• Platform: 2-XL Robot

The 2-XL Robot is an educational game that uses audio cassettes for “chose your own adventure” audio novels. Blinded by the Light is about a secret mission that Geordi La Forge is sent on, featuring the voice of LeVar Burton. Romulans have created a personal cloak and are testing it on a Federation place near where La Forge used to live, so he is chosen to try and stop it.

At points in the story, you get to choose what happens – the first one is if Georgi’s shuttle gets hit by a solar flare or a meteor storm. There are two main paths through this, both telling you that you failed to do something significant and to try again, so it’s a bit of a buzzkill at the end.

Star Trek: Generations (LCD)

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Toy Options
• Publisher: Toy Options
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

A British-made LCD game, there isn’t a lot of information on the LCD games this company made, but I found a couple of other ones, including ones based on Scalextric and Micro Machines. The images of both of those games look exactly the same, so I think this company designed some very generic games and hoped to get licensing to slap a different sticker and give it a different name.

This explains why the screenshot of this is just some spacemen and shuttles. It’s likely that this was designed as their generic “space game” for any future space-related licenses they got, although it doesn’t look like they ever got more after this one. The game is very basic. Spacemen are dropped from the top of the screen, you control the bottom shuttle and have to collect them.

Star Trek Customizable Card Game

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Decipher
• Publisher: Decipher
• Original Platform: Board Game

I nearly skipped this game. I loaded it up in Tabletop Simulator and was greeted with thousands of cards and an extremely complicated rulebook that was over 110 pages long. It was extremely daunting. I received some encouragement that it wasn’t as scary as it sounds and managed to find a different version on Tabletop Simulator that came with pre-built decks and a simplified ruleset based on those starter decks – the 110 page rules covered many years of additions.

At the start of the match, you build the “board” out of mission cards, which represent locations. In more advanced games, these can form separate quadrant and some cards need to be next to each other. You then take turns adding dilemmas to these missions, these represent challenges that the crews will face.

Each turn you play one card, slowly building up your ships and their crews, along with other actions you can perform. You can then move your ship between locations (as long as they’re in range) and attempt missions, ending your turn by drawing one card.

On missions, cards will cause you to lose crew (temporary or permanently). If you manage to get through them all and then have enough crew to meet the requirements of the mission, you’ll score the points for the mission, the first to 100 wins. When you add more complicated cards, extra factions, alternate realities and all sorts of other stuff, then the game can get very complicated.

When collectable card games are typically combat based, I really enjoy how this feels to play, and that the missions aren’t just combat based, it’s about having the right people for the job. I don’t like collectable games, but if this game had released in playable packs with pre-made decks, then I would have loved it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Romulan Challenge

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: J. C. Game Design
• Publisher: MMG Ltd.
• Original Platform: Board Game

Yet another roll and move Star Trek board game. In this one, one planet is the “target” planet, drawn from a stack of cards. The movement mechanics are somewhat interesting: roll two dice (both D10s) and your movement is the difference between the two (so if you roll a 9 and a 1, you move 8). If you roll a double, you add the numbers together instead.

Once you move, you then use the numbers on the dice to consult the co-ordinates board to find out if you get nothing, a resource card (required to reach planets) or a command cards, which gives you a random order (move extra spaces, move to certain spaces, miss a turn, get resource cards). Some of these have trivia questions you have to solve in order to get the reward.

[Star Trek Masturbatathon]

https://roddenberry.x.io/

There's also a ton of Enterprise bridges that you can walk around, they look amazing (to enable walking around, you need to be on a desktop using a Chrome-based browser).

[Star Trek Masturbatathon]

1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

The work Gates has done on her face though... a true shame

She hasn't had any.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Judgement Rites

• Original Release: 1993
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: DOS

The sequel to the 25th Anniversary doesn’t get as much attention as the original, which is a shame as this is an improvement in every way.

Judgement Rites features an arching storyline trying most of the plots of each “episode” together, which I think works well for a video game. Each episode still feels like a complete story with its own individual plot, mysteries and setting. The away team also varies, so it’s nice that the rest of the crew (other than Spock and McCoy) get to do more in this game. This game was also the last completed project that had all of the main cast in it.

Combat returns, but now has an easier setting or can be disabled completely, although some dialogue is cut if you choose this. That said, some of the battles do just seem to be there for the sake of having a battle in each story, so it’s still good that you can turn off its weakest element.

The point and click portions are great, and there are no timers to worry about each time so you can solve them at your own pace. I did find a few times that some elements you need can be difficult to notice, for one story I was wondering around for ages because I didn’t realise that one computer panel was actually two (you needed to interact with both) and sometimes you won’t realise that the bottom of the screen is a path, but for the most part it’s solvable without really obscure solutions and sometimes there are even a couple of ways to do something.

Judgement Rites is a great game, and I highly recommend it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (NES)

• Original Release: 1993
• Developer: Imagineering
• Publisher: Absolute Entertainment
• Platform: NES

By far the most impressive thing about this game is how they’ve managed to fit so much stuff on just a D-pad, A, B, Select and Start. The controls aren’t good by any stretch, it’s just impressive that they could do so much with so few buttons.

In this, you command the crew of the Enterprise D. Well, four of them at least. Worf will turn on/off shields and weapons. Data will set courses for systems and orbit planets. La Forge will boost power to some systems and sort out repairs. O’ Brian is the most involved with controlling the transporter. Riker tells you the time. You use the D-pad to select who you want to give a command to and A to confirm.

Pressing the select button will put you in a mode where you fly the ship and shoot phasers/torpedoes. However, to change speed you have to go back to the command mode and press forward/back.

The game itself is random missions that generally involve flying somewhere, shooting stuff and then transporting. It’s a fairly dull combat simulator and not much more. When you beam stuff up (cargo or hostages), you get a nice little minigame, but that’s all there is.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Game Boy)

• Original Release: 1993
• Developer: Imagineering
• Publisher: Absolute Entertainment
• Platform: NES

While it’s quite often the case that the Game Boy got completely different versions of the games than the NES (25th Anniversary being one example), this is the exact same game as on the NES, just in black an white. There’s not much more to cover with this version, other than it being really good for a Game Boy conversion of a game – it’s just a shame that the game isn’t a good one.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Tiger)

• Original Release: 1993
• Developer: Tiger
• Publisher: Tiger
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

A very basic LCD game. You have to avoid asteroids while shooting at Romulans. These games are very rarely any good, and are almost impossible to see when playing.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Klingon Challenge

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Decipher
• Publisher: Decipher
• Original Platform: Board Game

On the surface, this is another roll and move board game. The Enterprise has been taken over by a Klingon called Kavok. As the ship was undergoing upgrades, only a few unnamed crew are on board. It’s up to them to get access to the Enterprise computer and stop Kavok from starting a war between the Federation and the Klingons.

Do do this, they need to collect 5 isolinear chips and a phaser and get to the bridge. To do this, you need to collect computer access card by landing on spaces and hopefully drawing a card that mentions a specific room (or, if you’re lucky, any room) – however, some of these cards are just bonuses. Once you get to the mentioned room, you earn your next chip.

If the game was just rolling moving and doing what it says, it would be boring. But this is a VCR board game, which makes the experience a lot more fun (albeit a bit silly). While playing, you watch the footage and Kavok (played by Robert O’Reilly, known for playing Gowron) will pop up every now and then. He’ll address a player (usually the one currently moving, sometimes based on rank) who has to respond with “Yes Captain Kavok!” and then gets told what to do, which is usually getting trapped in a stasis field (so they can’t move), spinning the Klingon Dagger for a random chance or to EXPERIANCE BIJ!

While Kavok gets more and more excited to say the words, it just means drawing a Bij card and doing what it says. This will usually be something negative. Sometimes a “Low Level Malfunction” will pop up on screen when you EXPERIANCE BIJ which means you get a reward instead.

It’s a silly game, but fun. It’s easy to lose track of things, but the rules even expect this and say to quickly pick a random person and carry on playing because you’re against the clock. If time runs out, you’ll have to watch the Enterprise get destroyed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Classic Games)

• Original Release: 1993
• Developer: Classic Games
• Publisher: Classic Games
• Original Platform: Board Game

This is similar to the previous board game from the same publisher: a board game where answering trivia questions gives you another clue. While the game is simple, there’s lots of different things that can happen so the host be referring to the rulebook a lot. One player is Starfleet Command and keeps track of what is going on, as well as reading questions for players to answer.

The aim of the game sounds simple: There are planets hidden in the sector, find and scan them and report to Starfleet Command. I tried a scenario with one sector and two planets and it took forever for someone to find one planet (we agreed that they won the game at that point). The sensor range of ships is quite small so they have to get quite close to the planets to discover them. On top of that, each of the three other players have their routes hidden from each other, so could all be exploring similar areas. I can’t imagine trying to play this game with all four sectors.

On a player’s turn, they pick a direction and speed and move in that direction. Starfleet Command then reads a question – the faster the ship is travelling, the more difficult the question it. Each question has consequences (damaging systems or getting teleported elsewhere by Q) and bonuses (mainly just taking another turn).

It’s a shame because all the grids and drawing implements give the impression of a much more interesting game – once again it will just be better to ask each other the trivia questions.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Game of the Galaxies

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Cardinal
• Publisher: Cardinal
• Original Platform: Board Game

Yet another roll and move Star Trek game, although at least this one has a nice board. The object of the game is to play as a character from The Next Generation (the game supports 6 players but there are 10 characters to choose from) to visit planets to collect treaties (you just land on the planet to get it).

Landing on blue spaces will give you cards that will move you around, make you lose or gain treaties or make you lose a turn. you start off with a Photon Torpedo card which lets you take a shortcut through an asteroid field.

Dabo

• Original Release: Seen on-screen in 1993
• Developer: Cryptic
• Publisher: Perfect World
• Original Platform: Board Game

Dabo! This is playable in Star Trek Online, so I was able to use that version for the purposes of this. There’s not really a lot to talk about, it’s just a large slot machine/roulette wheel combo. You pick a position on the outside of the board, then the three rings spin. When the stop, the three symbols that line up with the positions you bet on determine your reward (or lack of reward).

Tongo

• Original Release: Seen on-screen in 1993
• Developer: luminous1, Dean Jones
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Original Platform: Board Game

I manged to find some rules form Tongo that someone made based on all mentions of the game in the script of Deep Space Nine. It’s a Poker-like game with lots of random stuff happening with round cards, square cards, dice and betting. The rules I found used standard cards, while I found some imagery of Tongo cards and edited them to create numbered cards in four ranks.

The round cards are your personal hand, these are visible to only you. The square cards are placed on the floor (the spinner), mostly face down. Every single card is part of the game, and have have to move and manipulate them. However, they can only be moved when face down so you have to try and memorise where they are. On top of that, the board is then spun so people have to keep focused so they don’t lose track of which section the cards they need are on. The vertical cards are called the “floor” and are used in determining hand ranking while the horizontal ones are used for exchanging. Finally, the dice can be rolled if they are on the segment facing you. Everyone can use the dice, which count as any rank, but they can only be used to increase a hand and nor form one (for example, a dice can’t be used for a pair, but it can turn a pair into a three-of-a-kind).

Instead of betting, you pay for actions into the pot. Frist you can alter the buy/sell/exchange values, then pay to buy (flip face up), sell (flip face down) or exchange (swap with a card in the vertical row on the same or other section of the board). There are two ways of challenging other players: confront or acquire.

Confront means all players can use the cards in any of the floors, it doesn’t matter who they are facing. Acquire means everyone is forced to use the cards in the section in front of them. You score your hand based on the round cards you have, the card in the flop and the three dice.

Tongo is a very complicated poker, with individual rounds taking a long time – with potentially only a single round in the game. There’s a lot of card manipulation and trying to keep track of what is going on. Unfortunately, the version I’ve made in Tabletop Simulator isn’t fully functional, but I’m trying to figure out the scripting to make it work.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Advanced Holodeck Tutorial

• Original Release: 1994
• Developer: Imagineering
• Publisher: Absolute Entertainment
• Platform: Game Gear

When I first saw the name, I though it was a strange way of downplaying a game to make it sound not so good. But after playing the NES and Game Boy versions of this game (which didn’t have the subtitle), it’s actually a pretty fair description for the game.

The Game Gear version of this features a little splash screen explaining that it’s training missions on a holodeck at Starfleet Academy (that information was only in the manuals for the other versions), as well as some nice shots of the Enterprise D going to warp, with better use of colour throughout the game.

While the game still isn’t good, the Game Gear version is definitely the version of it.

[What Have You Bought?]

Some figures (well, they were bought for me). Got a couple left to collect.

[Star Trek Masturbatathon]

They really need to announce Star Trek Legacy now.

[Lego!]

Sonic's turn for some more sets

 

 

There are some parts of each set that are nice, but they're mostly quite rubbish. Focusing more on being a toy, which is kind of understandable, but would have been nice to have some more recognisable things than the random "beach party" bits each set seems to have.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

On 16/04/2023 at 12:17 AM, Dcubed said:

Man, there are a LOT of Klingon-based Star Trek games aren’t there? Still, it beats seeing the Borg get recycled endlessly I suppose.

I think it allowed them to just go all out fighting without it being odd for the Federation (that said, there are games like that with Starfleet).

 

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Interplay
• Platform: DOS

With very impressive production values, not only does this have a great visual style, but it’s also fully voiced with the full cast of The Original Series. It’s a point and click adventure game much closer to the likes of Monkey Island than previous games, which is a style that suits Star Trek extremely well

25th Anniversary comprises of 7 missions, which all feel like they could have been original episodes, with some interesting stories and some returning characters, and one is even a sort of prequel to Wrath of Khan. Although I did find that slightly odd because it starts with a Federation facility with a virus outbreak that only affected Romulans, with Spock saying it should be safe for everyone to beam over. I thought this was strange because of the link between Romulans and Vulcans and, sure enough, Spock gets ill, creating a timer for this mission (something I don’t like in games like this, I like slowly investigating everything). That said, the main parts of the mission are overall great.

Throughout the game you also get involved in ship combat. These parts of the game are horrible to control and are frustrating. The game would be better off with a simpler system where you give commands to your crew. One particularly annoying one involves a cloaked ship and you just have to hope that they don’t cloak too much to recharge shields – some of these battles are overly long.

Overall, 25th Anniversary is a really good Star Trek game, and it would be really nice to see a refreshed version that changes the ship combat and fixes some annoyances (like silencing repeated voice lines).

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (NES)

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Interplay
• Publisher: Ultra
• Platform: DOS

While this shares the same name as the MS DOS game, this is not a console port of the 25th Anniversary. This is a completely different game, with its own gameplay, levels and even story. The story is fairly simple: The Enterprise has fallen though gravitational anomaly and ended up in an unknown region of space. They have to find dilithium crystals and make their way back home.

The game starts off pretty terribly. It feels like a shooter and exploring the first area you’ll be shot at by plants and probably killed by tiny worms. Once you figure out the game properly, there’s actually not that much shooting involved at all beyond the first level, instead the game is about exploring, finding items and working out how to use them.

Once you finish the rather tedious first level, you’re given a lot of planets to explore. Most of these are ones you either can’t land on or are just empty worlds, but it still gives the impression of a bigger world – a lot of planets are just bits of rock, after all, only a few planets contain missions that further the game. One of these is a really fun level set on a planet of rogue traders. There’s even a time travel mission where you have to save a planet that was destroyed due to the actions of Dr. McCoy.

While it has a very rough start, this surprisingly becomes quite enjoyable.

Star Trek 25th Anniversary (Game Boy)

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Visual Concepts
• Publisher: Ultra
• Platform: DOS

Another game for the 25th Anniversary, and another one with its own story with its own version of the episode “The Doomsday Machine”. The Doomsday Machine is heading for Federation space. The Federation built a superweapon to destroy it, but the Klingons stole and split it into 12 parts on three planets. You have to find the pieces and destroy The Doomsday Machine.

In the space sections of the game, you have a map of the area and you can essentially choose which obstacles you face: asteroids, Klingons, Romulans, Tholians or Space Amoebas. These take you into a 2D scrolling thing where they all function the same with minor differences. You move to the right, avoiding and blasting obstacles. The Tholians are the most difficult due to their “webs”. Repeat this for the area until you reach the planet. There are four sections like this.

Once you reach a planet, you land on what looks like a randomly generated jumbled mess, but the layout is the same each time. You need to navigate these mazes, looking at your tricorder for directions, to collect four parts of the weapon. There are also enemies that are best avoided. You can shoot them, but if you run out of phaser energy you can soft-lock the game and have to die or restart the level.

This is a pretty terrible game. The space sections are fine but get repetitive before you finish the first one, and the ground sections are just a horrible mess.

Star Trek 25th Anniversary (LCD)

• Original Release: 1991
• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

An electronic handheld game to celebrate the 25th anniversary. The goal of this one is to rescue people from a Klingon Bird of Prey. The game has two parts. In the first, you rotate a single slither of shield around the Enterprise as you build up energy to fire a torpedo, then you align with the gap in the BoP’s shield to beam people up.

The Enterprise gets damage so you need to keep an eye out for Spock popping up in the corner to help you repair the ship.

Pair Match

• Original Release: 1985 (Used as a game in Star Trek in 1992)
• Developer: Bandai
• Publisher: Bandai
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld

While this game was originally released in 1985, it originally had nothing to do with Star Trek. It’s a very cool-looking electronic handheld game. The game itself is quite simple: it’s a version of the card game pairs, but each block plays a sound that matches with another. It’s much, much harder to remember location compared to standard playing cards.

The device was originally used as a “call waiter” prop in Ten Forward on the Enterprise D, however in the 1992 episode “Ethics”, Troi and Alexander use the device to play a game, thus turning Pair Match into a Star Trek game.

Star Trek: The Game

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Classic Games
• Publisher: Classic Games
• Original Platform: Board Game

With a fancy looking game board, I expected a lot more from this game. The goal is simply to visit four planets and return to the starbase (the two close planets count as one). You roll the dice and move that many spaces. At the end of the turn another player draws a card (based on how far through the game you are) and asks you a question. If you get it right, you take another turn – if your knowledge of Star Trek (TOS and the movies) is exceptional, you can just keep taking turns until you win the game.

Some spaces will make you move in certain ways or send you to specific spaces and others that slow you down. Some spaces will make you lose functions like warp and phasers. Phasers don’t do anything, but if you lose all engines you have to rely on another player to drag you back to starbase. They get tokens that can be used to repair their own ship functions. The rules also make a big deal that some questions can make you lose functions, but it relates to just two questions out of over 1000.

The game would be more enjoyable if you ditch the board and asked each other questions.

Star Trek: The Final Frontier (Board Game)

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Toys & Games Limited
• Publisher: Toys & Games Limited
• Original Platform: Board Game

A very basic and very random roll and move game. You get given four random planets that you have to travel to before returning to Earth. As a result, some players will need to travel longer distances than others. Each turn you roll the dice and move that many spaces. If you land on a starfleet icon, you draw a card for a random action like have another turn, move X spaces or miss two turns.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Brand Makers)

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Brand Makers International
• Publisher: Brand Makers International
• Original Platform: Board Game

A roll and write game where you have to go around the board to reach “docking ports”. Once there, you draw a character from a stack of cards. If it’s someone you already have, you put them back. If you land on another player, you can take one of their cards. Your goal is to collect the five main characters of The Next Generation: Picard, Beardless Riker, Worf, and Tasha Yar.

Keep in mind that this game was produced during season 5 of The Next Generation, and Tasha doesn’t even appear in the promotional images used for the board and box – plus Riker has a beard in those. This game is also a carbon copy of a Robin Hood game made by the same people, right down to the board layout. This is easily the laziest Star Trek game.

Terrace

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Anton Dresden, Buzz Siler
• Publisher: Herbko
• Original Platform: Board Game

An abstract board game that was popular on the USS Enterprise D. This came out in 1992 and was first seen in “Hero Worship”. The box for Terrace even got updated mentioning that it appears in The Next Generation, along with a Windows 3.1 video game that also mentions TNG.

Terrace is a multi-level board game. Pieces can move as much as they want on the same level, can move up one space straight or diagonal but can only move down in a straight line. You take your own pieces by moving downwards onto an opponents piece, but your piece must be the same size or larger.

The aim of the game is to either take your opponents “T” piece or to get yours to the opposite side of the board. There’s a lot of strategy to this.

 

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Trivia Game

• Original Release: 1986
• Developer: Scott Miller
• Publisher: Apogee
• Platform: DOS

A fairly basic trivia game covering The Original Series. It comes in 10 volumes, each with 100 questions each. Volume 1 starts with logical questions, while volume 10 seems to have some more obscure stuff that requires you to remember specific numbers or which members of the crew were on the bridge at the start of certain episodes. The presentation is fairly basic, but effective.

 

Star Trek: The Rebel Universe

• Original Release: 1987
• Developer: Mike Singleton
• Publisher: Firebird Software
• Original Platform: Amiga ST

The Rebel Universe certainly has ambition. It provides a large region of space to explore called the Quarantine Zone, where the Klingons have managed to mind control Federation crews using special dilithum. As a result, everyone in this area is hostile to you. There are multiple ways to win the game, such as destroying, components for the mind control system, jamming Klingon communications or finding and releasing a virus to keep Klingons peaceful.

Unfortunately, the interface for the game is terrible. You swap between different panels to control different aspects of the ship, but it is extremely clunky and you have to often return to the “bridge” screen to select who you need. The smaller screens also don’t update with important information and some are just the same image that don’t reflect the right information, so you have to constantly move back and forth.

There’s definitely a lot of ambition with The Rebel Universe, it’s tedious to play.

Star Trek: First Contact

• Original Release: 1988
• Developer: Micromosaics
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Original Platform: Apple II
• Version Played: DOS

Using similar systems to The Kobayashi Alternative, First Contact (not to be confused with the episode or film of the same name) refines some of its systems, making walking around much easier as it shows which rooms you’re heading to. It also displays who you are speaking to, so you aren’t constantly giving commands to the wrong people.

The story involves taking some diplomats to a planet for negotiations, however this is just a ruse for a secret mission to make first contact with a new species who are sending out a signal (the Federation don’t want the Klingons to notice). But while the transportation of diplomats is just supposed to be a simple thing, a murder happens that you need to solve.

The exploration element of The Kobayashi Alternative is gone, and this is a much more linear adventure. Events will progress at certain times, so you can miss important moments, so you need to prioritise what you want to look into. The story is a decent one, with a few locations and different problems at each, but doesn’t have the wonder of The Kobayashi Alternative.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (DOS)

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Micromosaics
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Original Platform: Apple II
• Version Played: DOS

This is a collection of minigames loosely based on Star Trek V. Wormhole teaches you how to fly the ship, as you have to avoid debris in a wormhole while collecting crystals. In Minefield, it teaches you how to use the ship’s weapons as you have to destroy a circle of mines before they reach the Enterprise. Hand-to-hand combat is a simple Street Fighter-style fighting game where you block and punch. Finally, there is “BoP Simulator” where you fight a Klingon bird of prey.

In “normal game”, you play through each one of these modes, connected via images that tell the story of Star Trek V. These are probably the best part of the game, with some lovely looking pictures showing the story.

Another highlight is the copy protection mechanic, which requires you to use the manual to translate Klingon phrases. Because of this, I know that Ghaj Qab How Wani’ is spoken in every Star Wars film.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (NES)

• Original Release: N/A (In development 1989)
• Developer: Bandai
• Publisher: Bandai
• Original Platform: NES

If you don’t remember a NES game based on The Final Frontier, you’re not going crazy: this game was cancelled and was never released. A four state prototype was discovered so we can see what the game would look like.

Like a lot of movie-based games, this is a side scrolling shooter. You start off as Sulu as he fights his way through Paradise. It has the difficulty you would expect from a NES movie tie-in game, with lots of projectiles flying in arcs. That said, this isn’t as frustrating as most of them. This first level is a pretty basic kill enemies and move to the right level.

Next you play as Scotty in a more open level. You need to find enemies that have bombs in order to collect them, the objective being blowing up a door to get to Kirk, Spock and McCoy. If you travel down the level, there’s a section you can’t get back up without the aid of rocket boots.

The third level is an Enterprise level, and a terrible one due to the controls. You need to blow up asteroids and then a bird of prey.

Finally, you play as Kirk on the creation planet. This is another liner level, but has basic platforming segments that work just fine (a lot of movie tie-in NES games have terrible platforming mechanics). The aim is to get to and defeat the entity that Sybok (Spock’s former classmate) believes to be “Got” (no, I haven’t made any mistakes, this is what the text of the game says) with a boss fight at the end.

If this got finished, it would have been a decent (albeit frustrating) game. I think Bandai were aiming to create a level for each member of the crew.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Transinium Challenge

• Original Release: 1989
• Developer: TRANS Fiction Systems
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Original Platform: DOS

This one is pretty terrible. While previous DOS games have had nice graphics, this one wanted to have animation so much that it opted for extremely ugly graphics in order to do so. The animations are bizarre, too, mostly consisting of Riker looking around confused.

Riker has been put in charge of the Enterprise. Picard is still there and the game would have been no different if you played as the Captain instead, so I’m not entirely sure why you play as Riker. None of the character’s personalities come out in the writing anyway. Riker’s mission is to stop some terrorist attacks.

To get things done, you have to continuously talk to people waffle on about nothing important, wander around a bit and chase ships around by moving between planets and asteroids because their position is random. The game is mainly boring, repetitive tasks. While the text-based games have quite big stories, this one feels like it would just be the cold opening of an episode.

This game also has combat with a turn-based mechanics where you can evade, shoot or alter position. It would be interesting to try it properly, but there’s only one fight in the game and the enemy ship keeps running away, requiring you to randomly check locations so you can fight it again.

Klin Zha

• Original Release: 1989
• Developer: John M. Ford, Len Loyd
• Publisher: Self Published
• Original Platform: Board Games

A Klingon chess-like game that was described in the Star Trek book The Final Reflection by John M. Ford (who helped develop the three Star Trek III Solitaire Games) and then developed into a full game by fans.

There are pieces with different movement rules, the most important of which is the “Goal”. This can’t move on its own, but can be moved by other pieces. The object of the game is to kill your opponent’s goal or to block them from being able to move. Each player sets up their pieces on one segment of the triangular board, with the third being empty space that can be moved into.

The game encourages to play like a Klingon, flaunting your goal for honour and glory. There’s nothing but shame if you play like a P’takh and hide your goal behind the blockade’s shields.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Trivia

• Original Release: 1990
• Developer: George Broussard
• Publisher: Micro F/X Software
• Platform: DOS

Another basic trivia game, this time based on the first few seasons of The Next Generation. The latest episode I encountered a question for was the season 3 episode “The Price”.

Visual Star Trek

• Original Release: 1990
• Developer: Unknown (Possibly John Saxton)
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: DOS

A version of the 1971 Star Trek game that has very little information about it – the only reference to who made it is on Trek Core, where it lists John Saxon followed by a question mark. In terms of major versions of the first Star Trek game, this one seems very overlooked, which is unfortunate.

This version boasts a more visual style along with mouse controls. Navigating is now as simple as dragging the mouse from the ship to where you need to go, and long range sensors are always active. On top of stars, there are also planets which can be mined for dilithium that can be turned into energy.

There are also a few additional hazards: gravity wells from black holes, tribbles and supernovae. My ship got infested with tribbles and systems slowly stopped working, but I never figured out how to get rid of them. However, these can be turned on an off, along with other options such as choice in the length and difficulty of the game.

Star Trek (Konami LCD)

• Original Release: 1991
• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

This LCD game seems quite rare, with not much information on it. There is lots of information on Konami’s Star Trek 25th Anniversary LCD, but this one is mostly forgotten about. I did find a description which says that the goal is to blast your way through asteroids in order to fire a fusion control missile at the star to stop it exploding.

The Alcor Trivia Pro Classic Star Trek

• Original Release: 1992
• Developer: Unknown (Possibly John Saxton)
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: DOS

This trivia game has a lot more features than the previous ones. The major one is multiplayer, where people take turns answering questions to compete for a high score. There are quite a few options to choose from, such as number of players, number of questions, timers, if the game reveals the correct answer if you get it wrong and “casino rules” where you can bet a portion of points that you’ll get the next question right.

The questions are all based on The Original Series. Some are about the episode, some are about the production (one was for the budget of The Cage, with four very similar numbers as options). I did notice one slight error: when asked about what division wears red shirts, Engineering was apparently wrong (it said security, which is also correct).

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

• Original Release: 1984
• Developer: William Cardwell, David F. Tepool
• Publisher: FASA
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Couldn’t find enough information online to recreate.

Most of the information I can find on how this plays is from a review on BoardGameGeek. The object of the game is to find Spock and escape, but the planet is falling apart. Each player has their own secret beam up coordinates and they need to find Spock and take him there to win.

From the sounds of it from the review, the rubble is a bit too aggressive and people don’t have enough movement points to complete their objective, which leads no no players winning.

Star Trek III: Starship Duel

• Original Release: 1984
• Developer: Jordan Weisman
• Publisher: FASA
• Original Platform: Board Game
• Not played: Couldn’t find enough information online to recreate.

A quick tactical board game. This is all about both ships moving around each other, trying to target while avoiding the weapons of the other. It came in two versions: USS Enterprise Vs Klingon Bird of Prey and USS Reliant Vs Klingon L-9.

The main component of the game is a three layer navigation wheel, one shows the enemy’s move, another is where you’re targeting and the top shows your position. You also have a control board where you chose the power level of each section of shield and what weapons you are using.

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Micromosaics
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Original Platform: Apple II
• Version Played: DOS

The manual is a very important requirement for playing this: There’s a big backstory, plus it lists the systems and planets you can visit. Even with the manual, it took a while to get used to playing the game. Unlike most text adventure games, the text you write isn’t your actions, instead you’re playing as Kirk and the text is what Kirk is saying to other people, giving them commands. Kirk’s actions are done via the Function buttons.

The game starts with the Enterprise out of power and a quick jaunt on a planet to learn how the game works to reach a species called the Orna that can fix the Enterprise. From there on, you’re free to explore the systems mentioned in the manual (or put in your own coordinates) with the mission to find the USS Heinlein (a ship that Sulu is in command of).

Some of the planets are side quests, while others will present you with clues and new information. The planets are varied, from a medieval planet where you have to kill a dragon to a Dyson sphere with communities in areas (I found out the hard way that travelling between locations requires a spacesuit.

The way the game works reminded me a bit of The Outer Wilds, a time loop game where you have to learn how its universe functions. You can use knowledge from previous games to skip sections, although you do get a higher score if you do everything in one run.

I had a lot of fun with this, there’s a lot to like about it.

Star Trek: The Adventure Game

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Greg Costikyan, Doug Kaufman
• Publisher: West End Games
• Original Platform: Board Games
• Not played: Couldn’t find enough information online to recreate.

With a quick glance at the board, this looks like it could be another war game, but it’s the complete opposite: there is no direct confrontation happening. Instead, the Federation and Klingons are trying to recruit planets to their side. This is done via the story book, where you encounter a mini choose-your-own adventure story to determine what happens.

The game is also asymmetrical, with the Klingon player playing as sleeper agents and write their position in secret. It sounds like it would be a very fun game.

Star Trek III: Kobayashi Maru

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Doug Kaufman
• Publisher: West End Games
• Original Platform: Board Game

This is part of a pack of three solitaire games in one. I was expecting three very simplistic games, but was very wrong – these games are quite hefty indeed, to the point that I decided they were worth their own article each.

Kobayashi Maru is – as the rules state it – a modified version of the Kobayashi Maru test that can be won (without cheating). You have to search through an area filled with gas clouds, trying to check between Klingons and trying to find buoys that lead to the Kobayashi Maru. Each turn you need to plan how your power is distributed, as well as assign your crew, and damage will slowly take its toll on what you can do.

It’s a tough game, and really in depth, but also really well made. It’s available on both Vassal and Tabletop Simulator.

Star Trek III: The Sherwood Syndrome

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Greg Costikyan
• Publisher: West End Games
• Original Platform: Board Game

The second game in the Star Trek III collection of solitaire games. A member of the Federation is messing about with a planet that oddly resembles the Sherwood forest during the tales of Robin Hood. He’s posing as their king, taking advantage of the people. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise need to rescue the population by having them overthrow their king, but without arousing suspicion.

You control the crew of the Enterprise, trying to recruit units to your cause, by either freeing them from prison or convincing them to join you. You need to be careful how you act, as actions such as beaming to and form the Enterprise will cause the “witchcraft” levels to increase, and you’ll lose the game if you interfere with the people too much in ways they don’t understand.

I found this game a bit fiddly, but I thought it was nice that a board game felt like an episode of the show.

Star Trek III: Free Enterprise

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Greg Costikyan
• Publisher: West End Games
• Original Platform: Board Game

The final game that comes in the Star Trek III collection of solitaire games. This is a profit-driven game. The Klingons and Federation are trying to convince a new species to join their ranks, and they want to see who is best at making a profit. Certain planets want goods (in a certain colour) that are produced by other planets.

To do this, you need to use your six shuttles to land on planets and manage cargo space to sell on other planets. Your shuttles can be damaged by the Klingons, potentially killing your crew. Named crew have one life, while you have an unlimited amount of unnamed redshirts.

This one starts out fun, but the simplicity of it makes it drag on a bit due to the length of the game.

Star Trek: The Enterprise⁴ Encounter

• Original Release: 1985
• Developer: Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Peter Olotka
• Publisher: West End Games
• Original Platform: Board Games
• Not played: Couldn’t find enough information online to recreate.

A story-based board game. Trelane, the Squire of Gothos splits the Enterprise into four duplicates, with the crew split between them. Each team needs to find a member from each division in order to win, doing so by completing “Adventure Cards”.

Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy

• Original Release: 1986
• Developer: Trans Fiction Systems
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Original Platform: DOS

Compared to The Kobayashi Alternative, this is a much more standard text-based adventure game. After a brief battle with a Romulan Bird of Prey, which you can’t target unless you ask Spock for help (the only clue to needing Spock is that your new science officer is terrified), the Enterprise needs to make slow repairs, but is out of food. The nearest Federation ship is a few years away, so your only hope is the nearby planet.

When you land, you find out about a prophecy that the Enterprise crew are supposed to be part of, so you have to solve this new mystery as well as food on this desert planet.

While it’s nice to have a big of focus on one planet, the lack of exploring different places makes this feel more generic. You also need to often perform actions that the manual and help don’t specify, such as overloading a phaser. A large part of the game also involves trading, but the items you receive are random, so you need to repeat the action until you have what you need.

This has an interesting story, but the game itself isn’t that good.

[Cube Tries to Play (Almost) Every Sonic Game]

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

• Original Platform: PC
• Original release: 1st April 2023
• Available to buy: Yes

Announced as an April Fool’s Joke, this is an actual game…and surprisingly very entertaining. You play as an assistant on a train hosting a murder mystery party for Amy’s birthday, Sonic gets murdered and you have to help Tails figure it out. Except that Sonic seems seriously injured and everyone just think he’s acting really well.

The game is a visual novel where you will click on items to collect evidence and then present them to work out smaller mysteries before working up to the main mystery (this has some interesting twists). After you present evidence you have to complete your train of thought by thinking of what Sonic would do – which involves an auto runner minigame where you collect rings. It’s simple, but a lot of fun (there are also lots of options to make it easier if you need it.

While it’s short, its a lot of fun and completely free!

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator

• Original Release: 1983
• Developer: Sam Palahnuk
• Publisher: Sega
• Original Platform: Arcade

The first official Star Trek arcade game, developed by Sega with a release in two forms: a stand up cabinet and a sit down machine. The graphics are similar to the Vectrex game, using neat lines.

The game gives you both a top down view and a first person view. The objective is to destroy all enemy ships in sa h area. You can recharge shield and restock on torpedoes at stsrbases, although some of these will be targeted by the Kllingons.

It’s a fun little game.

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (C64)

• Original Release: 1984
• Developer: Sam Palahnuk
• Publisher: Sega
• Original Platform: Commodore 64

Sega made multiple home ports of the arcade game Strategic Operations Simulator, so I decided to check one out. The Commodore 64 version looked the best graphically, so I went with that. It’s pretty much the same game, although now the first person view has a visible viewscreen border and the ships have a texture to them, with views from all angles.

It’s a really nice version of the original arcade game.

Star Trek Adventure

• Original Release: 1983
• Developer: D. Birdi,J. Birdi
• Publisher: Superior Software
• Original Platform: BBC Micro

The first Star Trek text-based adventure game. There’s not much story to this one: the Enterprise is disabled and Kirk is the only one left on the Ship. Spock is in the hands of Klingons and you need to find components to repair the ship. There’s very little dialogue throughout the course of the game, instead the focus is on items.

Kirk can only carry a few things at a time, so most of the game is working out when you need the items and where you need to move them to in order to prepare. For one section, Kirk gets poisoned. However, to reach that point you need other items so can’t carry the medicine form sickbay with you. However, if you leave the item in sickbay, you will die before you can get there. You need to know what is going to happen ahead of time, so you can take the medicine a bit closer to where you need to be.

It’s all entirely trial and error.

Star Trek II Video Game Watch

• Original Release: 1983 (Possibly)
• Developer: Collins
• Publisher: Collins
• Original Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

I’ve found conflicting information on when this was released, with some places stating 1992. I think it was released in the early 80s in Hong Kong.

Enemies orbit the Enterprise in a circle and you have to aim missiles to shoot them. The game also functions as a digital watch.

Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator

• Original Release: 1983
• Developer: Forest Brown, David F. Tepool, Wm. John Wheeler
• Publisher: FASA
• Original Platform: Board Game

This is a very heavy and detailed tactical board game. I barely managed to scrape by with the tutorial scenario, and there are a lot more rules that get introduced afterwards.

While it’s not something I look for in board games, the amount of detail is impeccable and great for people who want to manage every tiny aspect of their ship. Power distribution is important, as well as weapon arcs and your position. There are multiple types of phasers, torpedoes and all sorts. There’s an immense amount of depth, which is great for people who like it, and I suspect that this goes far beyond what any of the Star Trek video games will do.

This game had multiple versions up until 1986.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Atari)

• Original Release: Cancelled (announced 1983)
• Developer: Milton Bradley
• Publisher: Milton Bradley
• Platform: Atari 2600
• Not played: No prototypes known to exist.

Milton Bradley announced a game based on Star Trek: The Motion Picture for Atari 2600, VCS and other home consoles. The goal was to destroy the Klingon mothership. It also features flying through black holes to face unknown dangers.

Star Trek II: In Search of Spock

• Original Release: Cancelled
• Developer: Sega
• Publisher: Sega
• Platform: Atari 2600
• Not played: No prototypes known to exist.

In 1983, Sega announced two Star Trek games for the Atari 2600: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Due to the video game crash, these games were never released. The only official information we have are the original announcement and a poster which has the wrong name.

I did track down a thread on the Atari Age forums and found some information from someone who tested the Search for Spock game, and described a top down game similar to Asteroids, but this could have been Strategic Operations Simulator.

It seems likely that instead of making new games, they instead ported their arcade game to different platforms.

Struggle For The Throne: Star Trek III

• Original Release: 1984
• Developer: David F. Tepool, Jordan Weisman
• Publisher: FASA
• Original Platform: Board Game

Struggle for the Throne is a Klingon-themed board game. It’s a game about scheming and subterfuge to begin with, then turns into full on war. You start off with a small fleet and can request more from the Emperor (determined by playing influence cards and a dice roll). The other Klingon houses can also badmouth your name and cost you fleets. Your only goal is to get rid of all enemy fleets.

While Klingons would claim that this has no honour and is what Romulans would do, it really does fit in well with how we see Klingons act in the show.

At the start of the game, there are no ways to directly attack other Klingons – the Emperor keep things in line. At some point, a player can play the “Emperor is dead” card. Players then twist their action cards to the other side and an all out civil war breaks out, with the new actions being direct confrontations.

It’s a really neat and unique concept, and fits well with the Klingons.

 

[What Have You Bought?]

Bought another cat! We get her in three weeks. We're calling her Dax.

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

Star Trek Game (1974)

• Original Release: 1974
• Developer: Unknown
• Publisher: Hasbro
• Platform: Board Game

Luckily for me, this one had already been created on Tabletop Simulator, complete with working spinners.

Unfortunately, there is very little “game” here. You spin the spinner and move. Sometimes a space will make you do something, but most times now. Each player is on their own section of the board and the first to get around wins.

The game has two spinners: warp and impulse. For the path leading to/from the circle you need to use the warp one, for the circle you need to use the impulse one. Functionally, they’re no different (they both go form 1 to 8), but if you spin the wrong one, you miss a turn.

The design and artwork is nice, but that’s all the game has going for it.

Star Trek Game (1975)

• Original Release: 1974
• Developer: Bob Brechin
• Publisher: Palitoy Bradgate
• Platform: Board Game

Another roll and move Star Trek board game – this time from Palitoy Bradgate. In this, your quest is to capture two crystals from the surface of two planets and then blow up the Klingon ships.

While this game has standees of Kirk and Spock, you play as nameless crew – Kirk and Spock simply protect you from harm. The game starts off similar to Ludo where you have to roll a specific number to stat moving, then transport down to a planet: an ice planet with a strange monster called a Bluug, or a fiery planet with a giant spider: if either catch you, you’ll have to go back to the start of the planet.

Klingons are also chasing you, although they only take you back slightly. Other spaces will move you forwards, backwards or even send you back to the Enterprise to miss a turn and have to start again. Constantly restarting really feels like a drag. You can forfeit your turn to move Klingons instead if you want to slow down your opponents.

The board itself is really nice, with lovely design and a fun layout, but the gameplay is very poor.

Star Trek Phaser Battle

• Original Release: 1976
• Developer: Mego
• Publisher: Mego
• Platform: Electronic Handheld
• Not played: Too expensive to get second hand.

A basic game from Mego. This one keeps track of your score, and is very large and bulky. Stars will scroll past (the effect looks like the doctor Who opening) and sometimes enemies will appear. You need to line up your targeting and blast them.

Star Trek: Phaser Strike

• Original Release: 1979
• Developer: Milton Bradley
• Publisher: Milton Bradley
• Platform: Microvision

The Microvision was the first handheld console that came with interchangeable cartridges – the whole front of the unit peeled off and could be replaced with a new game. With it being so early, the display was limited, boasting a whole 16×16 pixels. Although there is something satisfying about these big chunky pixels.

In Star Trek: Phaser Strike, you destroy incoming ships by shooting from one of three different directions. Your shots are slow, so you have to time your shot based on where your enemy will be. It’s a very simple game, but for it’s format, it’s fun for a quick blast.

Star Trek Game (1979)

• Original Release: 1979
• Developer: Michael Gray
• Publisher: Milton Bradley
• Platform: Board Game

This board game definitely has some interesting ideas. It’s another one I had to recreate in Tabletop Simulator, although it doesn’t have the nice Enterprise shaped player pieces or the artwork on the cards (I found the text for the cards, but not the artwork). The board itself is lovely, looking like a display console showing a galaxy map. There’s some lovely artwork of the Enterprise, too, but that gets covered up by tiles.

The tiles feature warp paths in two colours. While in a sector, you can only swap between the two routes at your starbase or following the route to another sector. It creates a lot of thought when planning your route, especially later in the game as you need to land on explored systems exactly. The only downside is how movement is determined: rolling two dice and moving that amount.

Movement is the major part of the game, too. You get dealt four mission cards and need to complete three of them. The cards will have flavour text like “defeat Klingons” or “deliver serum” along with other instructions, but these don’t actually mean anything in terms of the game. You just need to discover these on the map and head to them.

As you move, you will reach unexplored stars. You can reach these without using your full movement. You draw a card to discover what is there. Three cards will send you back to your home base (something another player can do if they land directly on your space), but the rest are different kinds of stars, outposts or advanced civilisations. Once a system has explored, however, you can only land on it with an exact role – which makes it harder to complete a mission if you weren’t the one to discover it.

If you roll a double, you can move an opponent instead of you, however this just hurts both of you and isn’t very useful, even as a player has finished three of their missions and is heading back to their base.

Despite so much depending on the roll to move mechanic, this is a pretty decent board game. It would be interesting to build upon this with some different movement mechanics.

Star Trek Make-A-Game Book

• Original Release: 1979
• Developer: Bruce Nash, Greg Nash
• Publisher: Wanderer Books
• Platform: Board Game

A board game that you make yourself from a book. This is more about the construction, as you’re following a pre-set design instead of developing your own board game. Someone has already done the hard work developing this for Tabletop Simulator.

The game itself is a very basic roll and move. Spaces will earn you deflector shield components, others will make you lose them. Once you have all six, you can reach the bridge and need to get an exact roll – overshoot and you have to go all the way around the board again. It’s a pretty poor game.

One curious thing is that the board itself is missing part of it. There is supposed to be a corridor to the bridge that is completely missing – so you just have to imagine a couple of spaces there.

Star Trek Starfleet Game

• Original Release: 1979
• Developer: McDonald’s
• Publisher: McDonald’s
• Platform: Board Game

A tiny little roll and move game. This was part of the first ever themed McDonald’s Happy Meal, promoting the launch of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

The game is obviously quite basic, but it’s short and sweet. There are multiple paths to choose from, so it’s slightly more involved than some games.

Star Trek 3.5

• Original Release: 1982
• Developer: Lance Micklus, David H Summons
• Publisher: Adventure International
• Platform: Atari 8-Bit

This is another version of the 1971 Star Trek game. This adds a lot more visualisation, a larger galaxy and more types of areas to encounter.

The Enterprise and Klingons now look like ships, and the game displays a list of actions each time so you don’t have to jot them down separately. The galaxy is now much bigger, with quadrants in three dimensions. Navigation has been altered a lot. You can choose between impulse (moving within a sector) and warp (moving to different sectors). Within a sector, the speed determines how many squares you move. For warping, you enter the coordinates of the system you want to go to and the speed (which determines how many stardates pass). You also get a really nice animation.

You also see torpedo paths animated out, making it clearer what is happening in battles. Another significant change is how damage works, as you can repair systems without navigating to a starbase, which is useful when sensors are completely down and you’re flying blind.

Overall, this is a really nice version of Star Trek.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

• Original Release: 1982
• Developer: GCE
• Publisher: GCE
• Platform: Vectrex

Made for the very unique vector-based console called the Vectrex. This console is made up of white lines on a black background. In order to add colour and a HUD, you have to put plastic sheets on top of the screen.

In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, you turn in a 360 degree angle, blasting enemy ships. Torpedoes will get fired towards you and you can either dodge by turning away so the torpedo is no longer on screen or by holding down the shield button to block them. Your shields have limited capabilities, so you’ll need to connect to a space station to recharge.

The game is simple but a lot of fun. It’s not the most “Star Trek” game, something the developers also thought as it was sold in some regions under the names “Space Ship” or “Harmageddon”
 

[Cube Tries to Play Every Star Trek Game]

I enjoyed doing the Sonic one so much that I wanted to do more!

These are the voyages of the starship Cube. My continuing mission: To explore strange new games. To seek out new fun and new gameplay. To boldly play where noone has played before.

This is my challenge of trying to play through all Star Trek games, both video games and board games. On top of all the official games, I will also be playing a few select home-made games, such as the original text-based Star Trek game from 1971 (no mods of other games will be counted, though).

 

Star Trek Game (1967)

• Original Release: 1967
• Developer: Julie Cooper
• Publisher: Ideal Toys
• Platform: Board Game

The first Star Trek boardgame, which I have recreated in Tabletop Simulator. If it wasn’t from the box design and the name on the board, you probably wouldn’t even guess that it’s Star Trek related, as the ships are just regular pawns and the design of the fuel ship art is a very strange design. There’s a Starfleet delta on the mission cards, but that’s about it.

The game is set in a solar system that consists of Earth and six planets names after Greek letters. Your mission is to visit three planets (a card will tell you which ones and the order) then return to Earth, first one to do so wins.

Each turn you will play a fuel card and move that amount of spaces either horizontally and vertically. You start off with cards numbered 1-10 but as you refuel you can pick our of what everyone has discarded, so you need to carefully plan your route. Your target is the “Orbit entrance point”, which you need to and on exactly to start landing – once you land on a planet, you can refuel by picking three cards.

After you’ve made a movement, you roll the dice and move one of the two fuel ships that many spaces. If you manage to get it to land next to you, you can draw a fuel card. This is rare, though, as players are constantly fighting to move it closer to them. If you run our of fuel, you move one space per turn, making it very slow progress.

It’s existence of the game is interesting, but it’s ultimately quite boring to play.

Star Trek (1971, Mike Mayfield)

• Original Release: 1971
• Developer: Mike Mayfield
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: HP Basic
• Version Played: Direct C# Port by Michael Birken (No enhancements)

The first Star Trek video game, made for the Sigma 7 and then ported to the HP 2000C minicomputer. These were devices that had no screens, but were instead connected to a printer and printed the new game game as you played.

This game was ported to many different systems, under a lot of different names such as Apple Trek, Tari Trek and Dragon Trek. I have chosen a couple that I will go through with significant changes, as the vast majority run the same, just ported to different systems, with the latest major version being released in 2023.

In this game, you need to destroy a set amount of Klingons in a few days. You need to explore the area, as well as dock at stations to repair yourself. Here is one of my complete failure attempts:

ENTER SEED NUMBER 12
INITIALIZING...

YOU MUST DESTROY 19 KINGONS IN 30 STARDATES WITH 6 STARBASES

COMBAT AREA      CONDITION RED
   SHIELDS DANGEROUSLY LOW
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
            <*>         
   +++                   STARDATE  2900
                         CONDITION RED
                         QUADRANT  4,2 
                         SECTOR    5,1 
                *        ENERGY    3000
                         SHIELDS   0
                         PHOTON TORPEDOES 10
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
COMMAND 2
LONG RANGE SENSOR SCAN FOR QUADRANT 4,2 
-------------------
| 008 | 001 | 003 |
-------------------
| 007 | 101 | 008 |
-------------------
| 114 | 003 | 008 |
-------------------
COMMAND 0
COURSE (1-9) 8
WARP FACTOR (0-8) 5
118 UNIT HIT ON ENTERPRISE FROM SECTOR 2,2 
   (0 LEFT)

THE ENTERPRISE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. THE FEDERATION WILL BE CONQUERED
THERE ARE STILL 19 KLINGON BATTLE CRUISERS

YOU MUST DESTROY 13 KINGONS IN 30 STARDATES WITH 5 STARBASES

COMBAT AREA      CONDITION RED
   SHIELDS DANGEROUSLY LOW
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
                        
             *           STARDATE  3200
    *       +++          CONDITION RED
               <*>       QUADRANT  4,4 
 *                       SECTOR    6,4 
             *           ENERGY    3000
                         SHIELDS   0
             *     *     PHOTON TORPEDOES 10
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
COMMAND 2
LONG RANGE SENSOR SCAN FOR QUADRANT 4,4 
-------------------
| 006 | 001 | 007 |
-------------------
| 008 | 106 | 002 |
-------------------
| 002 | 016 | 007 |
-------------------
COMMAND 0
COURSE (1-9) 5
WARP FACTOR (0-8) 3
273 UNIT HIT ON ENTERPRISE FROM SECTOR 5,3 
   (0 LEFT)

THE ENTERPRISE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. THE FEDERATION WILL BE CONQUERED
THERE ARE STILL 13 KLINGON BATTLE CRUISERS

This game is very difficult, as you need to hunt for Klingons, navigate around and so lots of actual calculations to work out how to navigate as well as aim torpedoes. For such an old game, there is a surprising amount of detail in it, with enemies that attack you, systems that break, scanning and even a built-in calculator for torpedoes.

Your systems breaking are completely random, though, and something like your warp drive breaking can render a playthrough unwinnable as you won’t be able to find a starbase in time. Even without any damage, navigating around is very difficult as you need to set a direction and speed, and take into account both sector and quadrant locations.

Despite all this, there’s just something that’s a lot of fun about trying to do all this with such basic input, having to figure it all out yourself.  It’s a fascinating game and it’s definitely impressive for what it was originally made for.

Star Trek (1971, Bill Peterson)

• Original Release: 1971
• Developer: Bill Peterson
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Version Played: Version 32-9, modified by Don Daglow & James Underwood

A much lesser known Star Trek mainframe game, written in a form of BASIC used by the CDC 6000. Wikipedia credits Don Daglow with this. While he did revise it in 1972, the credits in the code say that it was originally made by Bill Peterson from Cal Tech.

This Star Trek game describes what it happening through dialogue with Spock, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, with you entering commands to defeat enemies.

Each time you play, you get a slightly different story, all of them will lead to a battle against single enemy. You have to give commands (by typing numbers from a list of options) to position yourself, fire phasers/torpedoes and try to defeat the enemy.

By moving and using sensors, you’ll be given the position and bearings for both you and the enemy. It’s extremely difficult to use the coordinates to figure out where you are in relation to the enemy, as well as which direction you’re pointing and which weapons you can use.

If you sustain enough damage, Spock will mutiny and flee the area. I’ve seen this section of text a lot. The only time I won was by not fighting, but instead boarding the enemy ship.

There are a lot of ship names that are generated by the speed, I like that the seed number 47 gives you the Enterprise – a complete coincidence as the use of the number came about much later.

Star Trek (1972, For-Play)

• Original Release: 1972
• Developer: For-Play
• Publisher: For-Play
• Platform: Arcade
• Version Played: PC port of Computer Space

The first commercially released Star Trek game. Not only was this not officially licensed, but it’s also a clone of another arcade game called Computer Space. The only difference is that the controls are slightly reworked to use a joystick instead of buttons. As there’s no way for me to play the Star Trek version, I played a PC port of Computer Space as it’s the same game.

The game works exactly the same as the later and much more popular game Asteroids. Spin the ship around, use thrust to move and shoot. The aim is to destroy the two enemy ships more times than they destroy you. The game only lasts a couple of minutes.

Super Star Trek

• Original Release: 1973-1975
• Developer: Mary Cole, David Ahl, Bob Leedom
• Publisher: Self-Published
• Platform: Basic-Plus
• Version Played: Direct LUA port by Emanuele Bolognesi

Super Star Trek is the first major enhancement of the 1971 Star Trek game. This makes the game much easier to decipher, with some information given via dialogue from the crew, and generally making everything much easier to visualise and making actions easier to perform. Permission was even supposedly given by Paramount to use the name Star Trek.

The regions are given names, and the icons for the Enterprise and Klingons use letters to help distinguish them better. That said, the game is still difficult, losing access to some functions is still a major hazard – I even lost access to damage control in one playthrough.

Super Star Trek is a really nice version of the original Star Trek game.