Louis_Cypher
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2016
- Messages
- 1,563
Just want to shout out how faithful these games were to their franchise, and how far they went to capture the spirit and aesthetics of Star Trek. Unlike say Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, where you can barely click on anything in the environment, you can use your eyes, medical tricorder, or scientific tricorder, to interact with tons of things in the game world, with descriptions of almost everything down to light fittings. They were also fully voiced by the original cast, in the CD version of the game, including DeForest Kelley's last appearance as Dr McCoy. Interplay made both Original Series games, but Star Trek: Judgement Rites is the superior of the two games. Microprose later made a similar Star Trek: The Next Generation game called Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity, but while featuring a plot worthy of the show, the game lacked the scope of the Interplay ones.
The main overworld of the game, takes place on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, where Captain Kirk can issue orders, plot a course to the next star system, open communications, issue damage control directives, or open the library computer and read entries covering not just obscure parts of the game lore, but also more general knowledge, such as in-universe lore from episodes.
Once the Enterprise has entered standard orbit around a planet, and discovered a set of coordinates or objective for beaming down, Kirk can head to the transporter room with a landing party. Arriving on the surface of a planet, the game becomes a full point-and-click adventure. For Judgement Rites especially, the puzzles were actually rational, and not just a case of clicking anything.
The two games provide eight episodes each, which were well written enough in Judgement Rites case especially, that they are like a lost season of the show. There was an ongoing story in both games, but also stand-alone episodes that did not play into the larger plot of either. A scientist called Breddell was the main antagonist of the first game, and returned for one mission in game two.
Another layer is the starship combat layer, in which the game turns into a space sim, like a slightly toned-down Wing Commander or TIE Fighter, and you can use phasers and photon torpedoes to fire upon enemy vessels on the viewscreen, maneuvering the ship via mouse controls. Combat was also capable of being initiated by going to the wrong star system and getting into a fight.
In perhaps an early form of DRM, you needed to look up which solar system on the star chart that you are meant to go to, by opening the manual for their names, otherwise you will violate Romulan, Klingon or pirate space, and be forced to perhaps deal with as many as three ships simultaniously. Some of them were equipped with cloaking devices and very heavy armaments.
Damage control was done by issuing orders to Lt. Cmdr. Scott, Chief Engineer, to direct his attention at a particular sub-system, such as phasers, photon torpedo launchers, sensors (without which the viewscreen becomes increasingly fuzzy until you are fighting blind), deflector shields, hull strength, and others. Enemy ships included Klingon D7-class battlecruisers, and Elasi Storm-class frigates.
There were even sometimes missions onboard starships including the Enterprise, with the different compartments that were accessible via the turbolift, marked on the map above in yellow. In general, the environments and artwork were superb, featuring some really nice pixel art, that rendered both high tech environments like planet Balkos III, and low tech ones brilliantly.
At the end of each mission you would be evaluated on how you chose to handle various situations, with multiple avenues for solving problems, and if they were found to be in accordance with Starfleet's highest values (such as protecting life, curing a sick life-form, and not harming animal life without cause), you would gain different commendation scores with slightly different endings.
Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity, initially seems like it might be far wider in scope, because the star map is massive, featuring many systems, but the game is limited in number of planets you can actually visit. It is also in general, a little less well-put together in terms of puzzles and amount of dialogue. The plot however is quite interesting, equaled only by Judgement Rites, and I leave it for people to discover rather than spoil here. The art style was not quite as good as the Interplay games, but you could select different away team memebers for missions, which might hamper you if you select poorly.
A Final Unity was the game which introduced the Chodak, Microprose's own Star Trek race, who would later turn up in their other titles like Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Star Trek: Generations is a damn obscure game, but was a Doom clone FPS with an inventory system, similar to some early RPGs, featuring some pretty interesting elements, like first-person exploration of a Klingon rebel base, a Romulan base, or a Chodak base, if you can excuse the age, compatibility issues, and small window area.
The main overworld of the game, takes place on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, where Captain Kirk can issue orders, plot a course to the next star system, open communications, issue damage control directives, or open the library computer and read entries covering not just obscure parts of the game lore, but also more general knowledge, such as in-universe lore from episodes.
Once the Enterprise has entered standard orbit around a planet, and discovered a set of coordinates or objective for beaming down, Kirk can head to the transporter room with a landing party. Arriving on the surface of a planet, the game becomes a full point-and-click adventure. For Judgement Rites especially, the puzzles were actually rational, and not just a case of clicking anything.
The two games provide eight episodes each, which were well written enough in Judgement Rites case especially, that they are like a lost season of the show. There was an ongoing story in both games, but also stand-alone episodes that did not play into the larger plot of either. A scientist called Breddell was the main antagonist of the first game, and returned for one mission in game two.
Another layer is the starship combat layer, in which the game turns into a space sim, like a slightly toned-down Wing Commander or TIE Fighter, and you can use phasers and photon torpedoes to fire upon enemy vessels on the viewscreen, maneuvering the ship via mouse controls. Combat was also capable of being initiated by going to the wrong star system and getting into a fight.
In perhaps an early form of DRM, you needed to look up which solar system on the star chart that you are meant to go to, by opening the manual for their names, otherwise you will violate Romulan, Klingon or pirate space, and be forced to perhaps deal with as many as three ships simultaniously. Some of them were equipped with cloaking devices and very heavy armaments.
Damage control was done by issuing orders to Lt. Cmdr. Scott, Chief Engineer, to direct his attention at a particular sub-system, such as phasers, photon torpedo launchers, sensors (without which the viewscreen becomes increasingly fuzzy until you are fighting blind), deflector shields, hull strength, and others. Enemy ships included Klingon D7-class battlecruisers, and Elasi Storm-class frigates.
There were even sometimes missions onboard starships including the Enterprise, with the different compartments that were accessible via the turbolift, marked on the map above in yellow. In general, the environments and artwork were superb, featuring some really nice pixel art, that rendered both high tech environments like planet Balkos III, and low tech ones brilliantly.
At the end of each mission you would be evaluated on how you chose to handle various situations, with multiple avenues for solving problems, and if they were found to be in accordance with Starfleet's highest values (such as protecting life, curing a sick life-form, and not harming animal life without cause), you would gain different commendation scores with slightly different endings.
Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity, initially seems like it might be far wider in scope, because the star map is massive, featuring many systems, but the game is limited in number of planets you can actually visit. It is also in general, a little less well-put together in terms of puzzles and amount of dialogue. The plot however is quite interesting, equaled only by Judgement Rites, and I leave it for people to discover rather than spoil here. The art style was not quite as good as the Interplay games, but you could select different away team memebers for missions, which might hamper you if you select poorly.
A Final Unity was the game which introduced the Chodak, Microprose's own Star Trek race, who would later turn up in their other titles like Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Star Trek: Generations is a damn obscure game, but was a Doom clone FPS with an inventory system, similar to some early RPGs, featuring some pretty interesting elements, like first-person exploration of a Klingon rebel base, a Romulan base, or a Chodak base, if you can excuse the age, compatibility issues, and small window area.
