Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
I don't hate the movie as much as most people, but the game tie-in is every bit as terrible as you'd expect. It reminded me a bit of Dynamix's David Wolf in structure: 4 mini-games that you can select independently, or a "campaign" mode that plays them in order with appropriate cutscenes. The minigames cover the gamut of such things: one involves navigating a wormhole (looks more like it comes from ST:TMP than ST:TFF), one has you trapped in the center of a minefield and have to shoot mines to clear a path out, one is Street Fighter style beat em up against a Klingon, and I didn't even bother trying the last one. They are all quite awful, I'd say much worse than in David Wolf (which isn't exactly a stellar game to begin with). The Street Figher one in particular stood out because I wasn't really having trouble with it, I just gave up because the controls are so limited that you can really only do very few actions and hope your hits don't get blocked, as you sloooooooooooooowly whittle your opponent's health down; I just gave up after several minutes, afraid I'd die of boredom.
In-between minigames you get treated to graphical cutscenes with minimal animation and some text. The graphics in these is nothing short of stunning for 1989. Unfortunately there is no sound beyond the occasional beep bop of the PC Speaker. I didn't spend very long trying to win the game, one attempt at the first 3 minigames (including as mentioned earlier simply abandoning the 3rd out of boredom) and I decided that was enough. I really don't recommend trying to play this (I should look for an LP though).
Star Trek: New Worlds (2000)
Interplay's attempt at a Star Trek RTS, when they were surfing on the success of several ST games. This one's looks remind me a lot of Dark Reign 2, which came out around the same time. It may not look as pretty but the graphics are functional and units and buildings look distinctive, which is the most important thing in this kind of game. You can play as either Federation, Romulan or Klingon; in practice, the differences are quite minor (more on the order of Warcraft 2 than Command & Conquer), as most units and buildings are just reskins (though each side gets a few uniques). The 3 campaigns do play very differently: of the 14 missions (15 including the bonus missions) each campaign gets, only a couple have the same objectives, and even those with the same name can have different objectives and will play very differently. The campaigns themselves are quite good, with some interesting and varied objectives (scan landmark, defend structure, protect ally, kill all enemies, build a special weapon... many more, and in many combinations), some fun storylines with occasional twists and turns, and each campaign's story will references occurrences in another or show you how things might've gone down from the other side. There's a surprising amount of detail there.
Unfortunately the game is completely wrecked by some major strikes. First, you can't save the game, at all. Missions are picked from a menu, and completing one unlocks the next in line (there is no real campaign progression otherwise). Since some missions can go on for a LONG time (hunting down every last unit on large maps being a bad contender) and not being able to save mid-missions, or losing after one hour of play when you were minutes away from victory is quite frustrating. Second, the AI is terrible. This can make some missions easier, since the enemies will rarely try anything clever, but it also makes getting your units to do what you want an exercise in perseverance and patience, especially since the UI has some quirks in unit selection. Third, the game is buggy and never got much patching or support. Some scripts won't always fire properly, trying to complete an objective will not work without any feedback on why (it doesn't fail; it just doesn't work). I had fun with the few missions I played, but once the missions got longer and more difficult I ran out of patience, and once the game crashed on me mid-mission I decided that was it.
Starfleet Command Gold (2000)
What a magnificent game.
This is based on the Starfleet Battles boardgame, which I have never played, but it even comes with a massive PDF explaining the SFB rules and giving you enough material to set up a few simple SFB missions. I'm almost tempted to try them out.
There is so much detail, so much complexity, and such good gameplay here. Tons of ships, each controlling very differently. You have to manage power to each system, you can manage weapons separately, shields can be boosted, you can run around enemies and try to keep shields facing them, or blow them up, or cripple specific systems and leave them stranded, or captuie them to your side... The UI is extremely complex and allows you to control every little thing, but also has shortcuts, and it is possible to keep a lot of things on autopilot (though this is never optimal). You can have up to 3 ships and all are deployed on a mission (see caveat below). You get to play as one of six (!) different factions (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, and 2 that are creations of SFB, Lyran and Hydran). Although all factions share base systems, some have completely unique ones (the Hydrans' Fighters, the Romulans' cloak) and while they all have the same general families of ships, the ships themselves are quite different and can have access to very different weaponry. Playing as, or against, each faction really feels quite unique. Graphically the game looks beautiful despite its age and the blockiness, there's a lot of nice detailing in the models and textures. Music is fantastic, each race has a completely different soundtrack that captures their character perfectly.
The Dynaverse campaign system seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity. Much of what it tracks, such as alliances and off-screen skirmishes between factions, has no effect on actual gameplay beyond minor cosmetic variations. The "regular" missions are kinda boring and repetitive, with no real plot or connection to them other than "destroy ships" or "protect convoy". The real meat of the campaigns is unlocked when you join the special force of a faction, which you're offered after a certain amount of success. Doing so starts unlocking the unique missions, and these can actually be a lot of fun, with unique objectives such as infiltrating an enemy starbase and gathering data, scanning anomalies and planets, stopping a Doomsday Machine (straight out the TOS episode!). All campaigns stories share one common thread (the disappearance of the Organians, who had brokered a peace treaty between the various factions and without whom tensions erupt again) but each one introduces its own major plot thread as well, and these can sometimes refer to each other or intersect. Some campaigns even have a secondary plot thread accessed through optional missions that may relate to one or more threads. This results in a surprisingly rich tapestry, and it is this that creates the appearance of an interesting world more than the Dynaverse system itself.
Unfortunately, the game has one almost fatal flaw: level scaling. Simply put, each ship has a BPV value that is proportional to how good it is. Your total BPV (additive of all your ships) determines how powerful your opposition is. Need to buy a better ship because you need the extra speed or power for a particular objective? Suddenly your enemies have upgraded their entire fleet to Dreadnoughts. I can understand wanting to provide a constant challenge, but this should've been handled differently. It's a good thing the game is otherwise so good because this could've been a dealbreaker.
The other major problem is that some things don't work as advertised (the Supplemental Manual acknowledges this, bu it's not a very good excuse). Captured ships are supposed to be under your command, but they're not, they either just sit there, or get taken over by the AI doing whatever it wants, so it's not usually a good idea to bother unless it's part of an objective. The worst problem though is trying to control multiple ships. As good as the UI is otherwise, it is extremely finnicky about what the sequence of clicks (many, many clicks) you need to do to get a ship you are not in direct control of to do what you want it to. It's even worse when you start on a particular course of action on ship 1, then decide to switch to ship 2. I found it usually better to simply not bother with more ships, but some special missions force another ship on you, and others are impossible to complete without more than one, most egregiously the final Federation mission. You have to run around dealing with things that are spawning at all corners of the map (and maps are vast in this game), and you're on a strict timer. There is a waypoint marker system, which should make this task much easier - except of course, as the Supplemental Manual helpfully points out, markers are all thrown out as soon as you switch to another ship.
Despite both flaws being quite major I had a ton of fun with the game, and of all 4 I talk about here this is the only one I kept playing. The Hydran campaign is incomplete, but what's there is still quite fun, and the other 5 campaigns are all good to great.
Star Trek: Tactical Assault (2006)
I played this on a PSP emulator (there's also a DS version apparently). This seems to be a simplified version of Starfleet Command, with some of the same general gameplay but stripping away much of the complexity, and with a much more linear and straightforward campaign. You only control one ship which you don't pick (assigned to you in each mission). Unfortunately taking away the complexity also takes away most of the tactical options, which turns most missions into a game of "orbit around enemy, keep your best shield facing their weapon, keep your weapon facing their weak shield". With very slow gameplay, with such simple tactics, against usually overwhelming odds, the game quickly becomes boring and tedious and a chore. The campaigns are quite interesting, with some cool objectives and storylines, but I found the game too difficult for how simplistic the mechanics are and gave up rather quickly.
