Inspired by the ongoing Resurgence giveaway, I thought it might be fun to discuss some of our favourite Trek games. Underappreciated gems are particularly welcome!
I’ll go first: I played the hell out of 1993’s Star Trek: The Next Generation for Game Boy.
In retrospect, it was a pretty simple game, but it felt pretty robust to this eleven-year-old. You took the role of commander of the Enterprise (specifically not Picard, as he gave you the missions), and made use of the TNG crew to complete various assignments, from cargo runs to squaring up against getting annihilated by Romulan warbirds.
And who wouldn’t fall in love with graphics like these?
Yes!
Still have it. I asked for a game for my birthday that year. At the last minute I said I wanted ST instead. My mom took back the game she had and swapped it for this. I played it like crazy. Although it wasn’t until last year that I realised how to beat the Borg.
I was, uh, extremely bad at the ship combat. Couldn’t take down much more than the Ferengi and Talarian ships.
I wouldn’t call it underappreciated since it was well received in its time, but Star Trek: Judgment Rites was amazing.
I wish there would be more narrative focused Star Trek games like that. Either a Disco Elysium style non-combat focused RPG or a modern adventure game.
A Disco Elysium style Trek game would be killer. Make me make ethical decisions about other species, decide if I want to be a Starfleet or a Maquis, and make awkward conversation with my superior officer that gets me reassigned to Delta Shift cleaning the Holodecks, and seriously reconsider my life.
How do you think it would hold up for someone who didn’t play back in the day?
At the very least, the music is great and the writing is full of great jokes and also some pretty compelling sci-fi scenarios that would have fit perfectly in the series. If point and click adventure games aren’t your speed, find a walkthrough (theynarent hard to find online) and refer to it whenever you’re stuck.
It is a 90s point and click adventure, having played this and the original 25th anniversary one recently I think it holds up well.
One thing that is nice about Judgement Rites is you can skip the ship battles if they aren’t your thing. They are fun but can but super frustrating.
Also check out A Final Unity which is newer with the TNG cast but I think still really looks great and the entire cast voiced the characters so it is almost like a mini season of the show.
I really enjoyed Star Trek: Klingon, on PC back in the day. It was officer cultural sensitivity holodeck training for the officer exchange program. You had to make decisions appropriate to Klingon social customs. It was bundled with a Klingon language learning program with speech recognition tech. Very cool stuff for 1996 CD-ROM games.
Some of my favorites were Star Trek Armada II and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force.
Who else played Star Trek: Armada?
HELLS YEAH! That game was my JAM
I was pretty young when I was introduced to star trek, and it started out with only the movies. I loved C&C Red Alert, so my parents got Armada for my dad and I to play, and I think I put in a good 1,000 hours into it before my dad even tried it out.
I played that game so much I think by the time I got a new computer I was giving myself ridiculous challenges to beat the computer opponents like scout class offense ships only, or “once superweapon ships are unlocked only use those no matter the price” or “no expanding the base”
@charonn0 @ValueSubtracted oh yes! Played Armada 2 more, especially modded.
