Best Star Trek games ever: 25th Anniversary, Judgement Rites

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

Seriously, these games actually felt like episodes of the series - they were compelling as hell, with real storytelling, application of logic and problem-solving.

'A Final Unity', was also very similar, but TNG-era.

Later games, like Elite Force, Armada, and stuff, while good from a gameplay perspective, didn't really feel like Star Trek, at all, or if they did, they just felt like later seasons of Voyager, i.e. pretty far from the exploration and awe that Trek is about. If anyone is into retro games, I urge you to play them.

If I were to rank Trek games, best to worst...

1). Judgement Rites

2). 25th Anniversary

3). A Final Unity

4). Klingon Academy

5). Birth of the Federation

6). Klingon Honor Guard

7). Generations (rare game now)

Hopefully the new 'Gears of Star Trek' third person shooter will be good - they seem to be putting some thought into it, and it could flesh out the movies and the new Enterprise quite well.

 

[ATimson]

25th Anniversary wasn't totally immune to veering away from exploration/awe (final boss fight, I'm looking at you). But yeah, those two are probably the best two Trek games to date.

I'm surprised to see Klingon Honor Guard make the list - my impression was that it was a pure action game like Elite Force (just not as good).

 

[137th Gebirg]

Kind of wished Armada, Bridge Commander or one of the Starfleet Command's made it in that list. I disagree that they didn't feel so much like Star Trek. Yes, they were combat oriented, but still fell exceptionally well into the universe, IMHO and highly customizable with total conversion mods to increase overall playability.

I was always regretful that "Secret of Vulcan Fury" and "Borg: Assimilator" were never made. Fury, for the obvious reasons, but Borg: Assimilator was to be the first Trek-based game dedicated to showing a world purely from the Borg POV, expanding into worlds and assimilate their resources and people. Screenshots of the prototype looked promising, but that was towards the beginning of the end for Activision's run, though, for the Trek franchise and I think that game's premature death was the result of cutbacks and other internal issues prior to losing the license.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

One classic I forgot to mention is EGA Trek - the uncensored version - probably in the top three.

25th Anniversary wasn't totally immune to veering away from exploration/awe (final boss fight, I'm looking at you). But yeah, those two are probably the best two Trek games to date.

I'm surprised to see Klingon Honor Guard make the list - my impression was that it was a pure action game like Elite Force (just not as good).

It is - but it feels a lot more like Star Trek than Elite Force, which was just Quake 3 on Voyager

Kind of wished Armada, Bridge Commander or one of the Starfleet Command's made it in that list. I disagree that they didn't feel so much like Star Trek. Yes, they were combat oriented, but still fell exceptionally well into the universe, IMHO and highly customizable with total conversion mods to increase overall playability.

Meh, Armada - a lot of people seem to like it, but it was never really very Trek-like.

On the other hand, you actually feel like you are in a Star Trek episode playing 25th Anniversary, Judgement Rites and A Final Unity - you can scan anything, or look at anything in the game, right down to light fittings, and Spock/McCoy, etc, give a response - hell, even Generations, which might be considered a weak game, drew me in because it felt very interactive and true to Star Trek.

Then, in the case of Klingon Academy, it's like the game was The Undiscovered Country, from the Klingon side - even David Warner, Michael Dorn and Christopher plumber came back - hours of live acting, and the feel that you are genuinely in the Klingon space navy.

 

[ATimson]

I'm surprised to see Klingon Honor Guard make the list - my impression was that it was a pure action game like Elite Force (just not as good).

It is - but it feels a lot more like Star Trek than Elite Force, which was just Quake 3 on Voyager

Hey, at least the Elite Force games had a story - that's more than Quake III or "Dark Frontier" ever had!

 

[wonderstoat]

I fondly remember 25th Anniversary ...Final Unity and Bridge Commander. I remember I had a demo that I played over and over of Klingon Academy, I think it was limited to one battle?

How can one play these games now? Do you have to run them in some sort of emulator - or from DOS I suppose? Is there anywhere online you can play them (in a browser ...?)

 

[Ronald Held]

What is the uncensored version of egatrek?

 

[ATimson]

How can one play these games now? Do you have to run them in some sort of emulator - or from DOS I suppose?

For DOS/Windows 3.1 games, DOSBox is your best bet. For anything Windows 95 or later, just running them in 98 or XP Compatibility Mode (not the VM that Windows 7 users can use, just the flags in the executable properties) is probably easiest.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

What is the uncensored version of egatrek?

EGA Trek was a really really compelling simulator of a war between the Federation and Klingon Empire, where you were the commander of the Enterprise - it had inventories, targeting torpedoes by coordinates, responding to planetary distress calls, etc, etc.

The original was pure Star Trek - but then it got censored due to copyright, and the Klingons were replaced with 'Mongols' etc. What an astounding game - I might have one of the few copies left in existence of the original, if the floppy disk still works.

How can one play these games now? Do you have to run them in some sort of emulator - or from DOS I suppose? Is there anywhere online you can play them (in a browser ...?)

Some of them might still be playable, I'm not sure. DOSBox is what people use for DOS games in modern operating systems if not. Some might need modding - I know Klingon Academy works, but has some graphical problems, which can be patched for XP, but maybe not Vista/7/8.

 

[Lance]

The 'Generations' game is under-rated. I think it was very much overlooked at the time, because its sprite-based 2.5d game engine was out of date at a time when the world was being introduced to Quake II. The actual game itself is pretty solid (it's a very different type of game) and I reckon would have been more fondly recalled had it been released a year or two earlier than it actually was. And I loved the way it played with the established film plot, especially the alternative ending.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

I know - it was really good, I must have plowed hours into it.

But I can see how someone trying to play it today might think less of it.

If you look deeper than the engine however, the gameplay was really awesome, full of puzzles, item pickups, really cool levels (going into the Romulan and Klingon bases was amazing).

Look at that cool clifftop Minosian ruin....

What a pity these games are forgotten, when they were better than anything that has come since - you get retro gamers, but a 'retro Star Trek gamer' must be a rare thing unfortunately, even though it would be a really full filling thing for Trekkies to get into.

 

[Shazam!]

Hopefully the new 'Gears of Star Trek' third person shooter will be good.

Not a chance.

 

[Lance]

I've got fond memories of Klingon Honor Guard too, probably because it was the first Unreal engine game I ever played (it was years before I ever got around to actually playing Unreal itself!). I remember liking it at the time, the level designs were pretty good. I remember one level was actually inside the Rura Penthe prison complex from STVI.

Another one I remember vaguely is Starfleet Academy for the PC (not the console version). It was one of those games riding on the coat-tails of the multimedia boom in the wake of CD-ROMs, and while I appreciated its aims, I think a lot of the acting in the full motion video sequences was sub-par. Unfortunately.

 

[ATimson]

I've got fond memories of Klingon Honor Guard too, probably because it was the first Unreal engine game I ever played (it was years before I ever got around to actually playing Unreal itself!).

Ironically, Klingon Honor Guard was implemented as an Unreal mod; the game executable is exactly the same (they didn't make any customizations), it's "just" custom levels, models, and scripting. Unreal v2.20 broke older mods, but you can drop in a newer-than-KHG Unreal EXE (like v2.19) and it'll still run.

Another one I remember vaguely is Starfleet Academy for the PC (not the console version). It was one of those games riding on the coat-tails of the multimedia boom in the wake of CD-ROMs, and while I appreciated its aims, I think a lot of the acting in the full motion video sequences was sub-par. Unfortunately.

On the other hand, I liked the solution it offered for how Kirk won the Kobayashi Maru better than ST11's version...

 

[donners22]

I certainly loved those two, and the similiarly excellent TNG game A Final Unity. Actually, I've been reminded of them recently by re-watching TOS - the games used a lot of the music from the TV series.

Other Trek games never really managed to capture the spirit of the series. It's a shame Secret of Vulcan Fury was never completed.

It's about time that Good Old Games added those games to its collection. I wonder what is preventing them from doing so.

 

[ATimson]

It's about time that Good Old Games added those games to its collection. I wonder what is preventing them from doing so.

I suspect the stumbling block is that Interplay hasn't had the Trek license for over a decade.

 

[Borjis]

I'm a HUGE fan of those titles, re-playing them every year.

I just loaded 25th Anniversary, Judgment Rites and A Final unity on my tablet and started playing them again recently.
They run perfectly with DosBox Turbo on a fairly recent smart phone or tablet.

I was so stoked when Interplay re-released the tos games on CD ROM with the voice overs and so totally depressed when they cancelled Vulcan Fury.

 

[swaaye]

I've played almost every Trek game in existence. I think my first was Star Trek V on my Tandy 1000TX, and I loved the starship "sim" part. Funnily, apparently this part was a "simulation" because the Enterprise could not be blown up in a game.

Most memorable for me:

25th Anniversary (PC) - how can this not be a favorite? I remember anticipating this game's release. Then I was horrified when my Tandy 1000 didn't have enough RAM to run it so I had to wait until I got a 486 PC.

25th Anniversary (NES) - totally different, unique adventure game

A Final Unity - Same deal as 25th Anniversary. Amazing TNG experience.

Future's Past (SNES) - Has some similarities to AFU.

KHG - Klingon perspective, Unreal engine surreal. This was one bleeding edge Trek game at the time.

TNG Interactive Technical Manual - it's not a game but I can photo-realistically explore the E-D! It even has the right ambient sound effects.

Dominion Wars - sort of weak, but it has Jeffrey Combs and Marc Alaimo (!!), and decent combat. Can play as Feds or Dominion.

DS9 The Fallen - amazing atmosphere. Somewhat explorable DS9 and other cool locales.

 

[heavy lids]

No Starship Creator? I realize it's not the best game ever, but I remember playing this for hours and hours when I was a kid.

 

[swaaye]

I've messed with it but I wasn't a kid at the time unfortunately. I remember Starship Creator Warp II came included with Dominion Wars and you can import the ships into Dominion Wars.