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

[EddyDrama]

Judgement Rites and 25th Anniversary were great, to my shame I have to admit that I have never played A Final Unity even though I own it. For some reason I never got it to work on my PC when I bought it in the 90s. I really should put some effort to getting it to work some day and play it.

I remember spending a lot of time with Starship Creator when I was a kid. I remember having fun with it even though it would crash constantly on my PC. Star Trek Generations was not too much to my liking back then, but i did play quite much when considering that I was not too fond of it.

The games that I absolutely loved were Star Trek Starfleet Academy (PC) as well as the FMV-games Star Trek Klingon and Star Trek Borg. Because of Klingon and Borg I still have a soft spot for all FMV games, my guilty pleasure.

 

[swaaye]

I really looked forward to Starfleet Academy but I was so disappointed with the gameplay. It plays more like TIE Fighter than a starship sim. Interplay should have done better. For some reason they had major problems completing the project. The videos are great though.

Klingon Academy is actually the same game engine with some improvements. It plays a bit better and the "ginsu" damage system is very entertaining. Some of the space phenomena are very cool. There's a black hole accretion disc that is amazing. I saw an enemy try to warp through it and fly apart!

By the way, Star Trek Klingon and Borg can be found on YouTube in walkthrough form. Good stuff. They're like watching lost episodes, especially since they use many secondary actors seen on TNG.

 

[NightJim]

Despite being a huge gamer I've not really touched that many Star Trek games, just Star Trek: The Next Generation on the original Gameboy, which got super hard when you hit Commander rank, and Elite Force. Which I loved, but never got the sequel. I went hunting for it a few weeks ago, and it's impossible to find

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Finally watched both games in full. It was like watching lost TOS episodes. A fun experience and it was nice to see Harry Mudd and Trelane again.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

Finally watched both games in full. It was like watching lost TOS episodes. A fun experience and it was nice to see Harry Mudd and Trelane again.

Hell yeah - they are on YouTube in full for anyone else interested :-)

 

[bbjeg]

I logged many hours into Star Trek Armada, being a fan of RTS's but I liked Star Trek Legacy the most, modded with Chris Jones' Ultimate Universe Mod, plus any ship I can get my hands on.

 

[Davros]

How could we have gotten this far into the thread with no mention of Star Fleet Battles?

 

[cannicks]

Birth of the Federation. ftw!!

 

[ATimson]

How could we have gotten this far into the thread with no mention of Star Fleet Battles?

By being a board game instead of a video game.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Thinking of Starfleet Command, maybe, based on SFB?

 

[Jaro Stun]

KHG was actually my first Star Trek game, I played the demo version first. I did not like it very much though.

On the other hand, Star Trek Armada I ("not the bloody II") had me completely immersed, especially as I played it roghly at the same time I finished watching DS9 season 7 for the first time. I was almost like a continuation of that story.

I agree with Elite Force feeling like later seasons of Voyager and actually I liked it for that reason...they seem to have captured the overall spirit right - not so much again with "the bloody II").

I have played DS9 The Fallen a lot as well, and remember liking it very much, but tried to replay it some years ago and it felt really dated, didn't age quite well.

My ranking would be (from best to worst):
Armada I
Elite Force I
DS9 The Fallen
Bridge Commander
Armada II (mostly due to excellent Babylon 5 mod though)
Elite Force II
KHG
Away Team
Hidden Evil
all the rest

 

[Davros]

How could we have gotten this far into the thread with no mention of Star Fleet Battles?

By being a board game instead of a video game.

I saw nothing in the thread title or OP restricting this to only video games.

 

[tmosler]

I am thinking about buying star trek judgment rights, 25th aniversary, and since these are usualy the highest ranked star trek games of all time. And download them on to a micro sd card then using dos turbo and turbo manager play them on my asus tablet. Would anyone recommend doing this?

 

[Yosef Lindell]

I will add my standard rant about Star Trek games. 25th Anniversary and JR are the best Star Trek games because they do what Star Trek does best -- tell a compelling story. The same is true of A Final Unity, but the gameplay there was not as well thought out. In other Star Trek games, story may be present, but it takes a backseat to action. Star Trek was never just about action (at least until JJ Abrams got ahold of it). I think it's hard to make a great Star Trek game based primarily on action, just like it would be hard to make a great Star Wars game where action wasn't a substantial component.

On that note, I don't think anyone has mentioned the interactive fiction trilogy produced by Simon & Schuster in the 80's. The Promethean Prophecy and the Kobayashi Alternative were frustratingly difficult to play, but First Contact was actually a very good game, if you overlook some of its faults. It's the only Star Trek game in existence where you can explore the entire Enterprise (but without images, so you have to use your imagination). It also has some great character moments and a pretty decent plot. The plot has some striking similarities to JR, and I wouldn't be surprised if Interplay was influenced by it. These games are not that hard to find for free online, and can be played with DOSBox.

Of course, no post of mine would be complete without lamenting Secret of Vulcan Fury. So this my lament.

 

[Lance]

^ I always thought it was sad that after it was cancelled, Fontana never tried to do anything with Vulcan Fury. Like a novel, say. Would have loved to read it!

Totally agree btw. The thing about these two games is it's like they're interactive episodes -- perhaps interactive episodes of the animated series, but interactive episodes nonetheless. Everything was so authentic, and they did an awesome job of taking on board mythology that didn't come to be until TNG and the movies, but integrating it seamlessly into the TOS world. One example being the opportunity to use a prefix code to lower the shields of a compromised Starfleet vessel in one of the missions, a nice throw-back (throw-forward???) to TWOK.

 

[137th Gebirg]

If the story line could be resurrected, I could easily see it becoming a short comic series or graphic novel. If IDW could somehow get the license for it, that would be all kinds of awesome.

 

[Phily B]

I'd love to see a release of these games on Steam

 

[ATimson]

I'd love to see a release of these games on Steam

Not likely - the games won't work as-is. They'll need to be wrapped in DOSBox or something similar. The producers could do it themselves (id did with Doom and Doom II), but we're more likely to see a release on GOG if anywhere.

That of course ignores the whole "licensing" issue.

 

[Chrono85]

Steam is a maybe, but they would fit very nicely on GOG I'd love to be able to play 25 Anniversary and Judgement Rites, so I did go on gog.com and request that the games be added to their library You can vote on the request.

 

[Viper78]

Steam is a maybe, but they would fit very nicely on GOG I'd love to be able to play 25 Anniversary and Judgement Rites, so I did go on gog.com and request that the games be added to their library You can vote on the request.

I haven't played the DS9 pc games, they look pretty good. My favorite has to be Bridge commander, what a game!!!

I did like also like "Armada". Wasn't to impressed with Armada 2 even though it did have the Galaxy class in it. If anyone can recommend any other good Star Trek games?

Voyager Elite force was another decent game that springs to mind.

Just can't get into STO at all for some reason!