Lock On To New ‘Star Trek’ Game
“Star Trek: The Next Generation ‘A Final Unity”’ Spectrum Holobyte, about $60 retail
Plugged-in Trekkies rejoice. The voyages of the Starship Enterprise have boldly gone into yet another dimension: cyberspace.
Capt. Picard and crew leap from television and film onto your desktop in “Star Trek: The Next Generation ‘A Final Unity”’ (Spectrum Holobyte, about $60 retail).
Part adventure game, part spaceship flight simulation, the program features the recorded voices of the eight main actors who made the second “Star Trek” series as rabidly beloved as the original.
With the necessary data added to home PC’s memory banks, anyone in the pointy-eared crowd can take command of the finest ship in Star Fleet, battle enemy ships in galactic dogfights, beam down to explore 3-D alien worlds and, of course, save the universe from total annihilation.
When the game begins, the Enterprise is responding to a distress call from a tiny rebel Garidian ship near the Romulan Neutral Zone. A cloaked Garidian War Bird materializes nearby, its captain warns Picard to stay back, then locks a tractor beam on the smaller ship.
Picard immediately puts the ship on red alert.
At that point the game controls fall completely into the hands of the player, leaving it up to the 20th-century dweller to rescue the rebels and emerge from the 24th-century confrontation alive.
And that’s just the beginning. Each successful adventure leads to another, gradually revealing details of an ominous intergalactic arms race the Enterprise must win.
True Trek devotees won’t be able to contain themselves.
Every major ship’s system is available: interstellar navigation, shield and weapons control, communications, the main computer, engineering, etc. Naturally, crew members can be consulted anytime for technical guidance or expert analysis.
Players can control any aspect of mission operations, or the details can be left to the crew members. For instance, in space battles Lt. Worf is always there to handle phasers and photon torpedoes when needed.
Having the real actors’ voices is a plus. Spin-off computer games typically skimp in this area, hiring cheaper voice talent to impersonate characters played in real life by established actors.
Diehard Trekkies just might get shivers when they first hear Patrick Stewart as Picard say, “Make it so.”
Select just the right blend of personnel for crucial Away Team missions to alien planets. These expeditions are the heart of the game, providing opportunities to learn clues about the rapidly developing storyline.
Find the proper beam-down coordinates and properly operate the transporter to send them on their way. Once at their destination, players can mouse-click on any of the four officers to let them lead.
The game is made up entirely of graphic animation, no live-action video. The entire game fits on a single CD-ROM, so no irritating midgame switching is required.
Primary drawbacks are always out-of-synch animated lip movements and an annoying tendency to make critical puzzles too hard to solve, leaving players bogged down in the middle of nowhere.
I got stuck in an alien transporter room that appears to be a dead end. And don’t always count on crew members to bail you out with brilliant ideas. They can seem downright dumb when they keep repeating the same unhelpful hints.
All in all though, the game is a winner, the product of an ambitious software design undertaking that does justice to the “Star Trek” tradition. Mr. Spock would be proud.
xxxx Trekkies beaming into Opera House Trek fans, rejoice: The Horizon Star Trek Convention begins today at the Spokane Opera House with a special guest from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” - Dr. Beverly Crusher (known in this day and age as Gates McFadden). Hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tickets are $35 for reserved seating, $12 for general admission. The fun continues Sunday with the same hours. Other guests will appear, plus there will be a costume contest Sunday.
Publisher to ship record number of discs Simon & Schuster Interactive, the software arm of the giant publishing company, next week will ship to retailers 300,000 copies of “Star Trek Omnipedia,” a new voice-activated CD-ROM reference guide to “Star Trek” information. The 300,000 units make it the largest initial disc order for a traditional print publisher. Simon & Schuster’s previous “Star Trek” CD-ROM, “The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual,” has sold more than 290,000 copies worldwide. The initial shipment of that disc was 35,000. “Omnipedia” should hit stores on Aug. 15. New York Daily News