List of Star Trek games
The enduring popularity of the Star Trek science fiction franchise has led to numerous games in many different formats, beginning in 1967 with a board game based on The Original Series and continuing through 2010 with online and DVD games.
Board games
- Star Trek game, ages 4–10, produced by Hasbro (early 1970s)
- Star Trek game, ages 8-adult, produced in UK by Palitoy (1970s)
- Star Trek game, produced by Milton Bradley, based on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
- Star Trek: The Adventure Game, produced by West End Games (1985)
- Golden Trivia Game: Star Trek Edition (1985)
- Golden Trivia Cards: Star Trek Edition (1985)
- Star Trek: The Game, produced by Classic Games (1992) [1]
- Star Trek: The Final Frontier, produced by Toys & Games Limited (1992)
- How to Host a Mystery, produced by Decipher in a Star Trek: The Next Generation version (1992)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation, A Klingon Challenge (1993)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Romulan Challenge, produced by MMG LTD (1994)
- Monopoly, produced by Hasbro licensee USAopoly in two versions representing the original Star Trek series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Scene It? Star Trek, developed by Screenlife and Mattel. Scene It? is a DVD-based board game experience where players pit their knowledge of the Star Trek universe against each other. Contains Star Trek TV and movie clips from all 5 live action series and the first 10 movies as well as trivia cards and on-screen puzzlers. Ages 13 - Adult. Available February 2009.
Tabletop wargames
- Star Fleet Battles, the seminal tactical tabletop wargame created by Steven V. Cole and produced by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. (1979)
- Federation Commander, the newest tactical tabletop wargame in the Star Fleet Universe produced by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.
- Federation and Empire, the strategic companion to Star Fleet Battles also produced by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. (1986)
- Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat Simulator published by FASA Corporation in the 1980s, based on the combat system from the Star Trek: The Role Playing Game
Card games
- Star Trek Customizable Card Game, produced by Decipher.
- Star Trek: The Card Game, produced by Fleer.
Role-playing games
Official game titles include the following:
- Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, produced by Heritage Models (1978).
- Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, the original Star Trek RPG produced by FASA. (1982)
- Enterprise - Role Play Game in Star Trek, released in Japan (only) by Tsukuda Hobby (1983)
- Prime Directive, designed by Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. and published by Task Force Games. (1993) Later editions were produced for the GURPS 3rd edition (2002), 4th edition (2005), d20 (2005) and d20 Modern (2008).
- Star Trek: A Call To Duty, online text based game endorsed by Paramount Pictures and advertised on the Star Trek website from 1997 until sponsorship was lost in 2000. [1]. (1997)
- Star Trek RPG, produced by Last Unicorn Games. (1998)
- Star Trek Roleplaying Game, produced by Decipher, Inc.. (2002)
- Star Trek Simulation Forum, has served as the chat based role-playing game of the official Star Trek website since October 2002. [2]. Remains the only simming organization currently recognized by the site. (2002)
- Star Trek Online, a MMORPG produced by Cryptic Studios. (2010)
Starship simulator games
Starship simulator games create the experience of commanding and operating a starship, and usually allow the player to handle a variety of functions, and to allocate resources such as ship power and systems. Some early Star Trek games in this category have had a huge effect on subsequent games in their genre, often leading to new level of depth and complexity in programming and/or gameplay. This game category includes both computer games and non-computer board games, since the Star Fleet Battles game series provides a starship simulation, and is wholly a tabletop board wargame. As well as the Star Trek RPG by FASA which allowed players to take charge of specific areas of a ships functions (such as the engineer allocating power) during combat.
Star Fleet Battles is different from most other wargames, which usually indicate unit strengths with simple numerical ratings. SFB players are able to deploy and manage power for a variety of ship weapons and resources. This is enabled through the use of an innovative tick sheet system, which manages power use for each ship, and also tracks which weapons and systems are in use.
In Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, produced by FASA, players actually had individual bridge functions during combat. This at one point became a separate game known as Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. The Captain determined the strategy, the Engineer was responsible for power management and allocation to different systems such as weapons and shields, the Helmsman for firing weapons, the Navigator for managing deflector shields, the Communications Officer for damage control and so on.
Some of the earliest and more influential space simulator video games were Star Trek games. One of the earliest games in this category was Super Star Trek, an early text-based, DOS-based game. This game created an impressive starship experience using only text-based commands and graphics. Another is the Star Trek (text game), which originated in 1971 and was ported to many different systems. The game Begin is considered notable for having a convincing model of game dynamics, as it has very few random elements, and is highly mathematical.
Netrek was released in 1988, and was probably the first game to use both the TCP and UDP protocols, the first Internet-aware team game, the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information.
In later years, fewer games were produced within this genre, and more games were produced in the adventure games genre. The first new recent game was Starfleet Academy, which incorporated many Star Trek elements, but was criticized for depicting starship operation as more akin to fighter planes than capital ships. A sequel, Klingon Academy, was actually quite different, and was one of the first games to depict starship operation with an appropriate amount of complexity.
The Starfleet Command game series released by Interplay was based largely on the tabletop game Starfleet Battles, and comprised Starfleet Command, Starfleet Command 2: Empires at War, and Starfleet Command III. It constitutes one of the most definitive current games, depicting a wide array of ship systems and Star Trek storylines. This series had a more naval flavor, and depicted a number of ship systems. This series spawned a very large multiplayer ladder competition first with the "Starlance" system, and later on the "GamerZone" ladder.
Bridge Commander was another addition to this genre, reflecting the more deliberative, command aspects of this experience.
In late 2006, Bethesda Softworks released several console games which carry on the tradition of classic Star Trek ship simulator/combat games, Star Trek Legacy for the PC and Xbox 360, Star Trek: Encounters for the PlayStation 2, Star Trek: Tactical Assault for the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable and Star Trek: Conquest for the Wii and PlayStation 2.
Several online games have appeared on the Internet. Vega Trek is a game mod which is planned to eventually become active as a multiplayer game.[2] Flashtrek: Broken Mirror is one of the first games in this category which is online and wholly browser-based. It has spawned two sequels, one by Vex Xiang(the original broken mirror writer) which is unfinished and a Broken Mirror III which takes place before Broken Mirror One, it is being made by a man named Darkwing and is based at flashtrek.motionsforum.com. The site also gives a challenge for someone to finish broken mirror 2. It also appears that Star Trek Online, which is an MMORPG and is currently under development, will fit into this category, since starship operation will reportedly be one of the key aspects of this game.[3]
In May 2009, Star Trek DAC was released. This game is a starship shooter in a top down style based on the movie titled Star Trek, by J.J. Abrams and features the original score from the movie.
Pinball games
Three pinball games have been based on the Star Trek series:
- Star Trek, released by Bally in 1979.
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, released by Data East Pinball (now Stern Pinball) in 1991.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation, created by legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie and released by Williams Electronics in November 1993 as part of Williams' SuperPin series.
Video games
Arcade
| Year | Title | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Star Trek - Strategic Operations Simulator | Arcade |
| 2000 | Star Trek: Borg Contact | Arcade |
| 2002 | Star Trek: Voyager - The Arcade Game | Arcade |
Computer
The history of the Star Trek personal computer game franchise began as early as 1971, with a Star Trek text-only computer game written in BASIC. Many PC titles have since been published, and the franchise was one of the first based on a TV program to break into the young PC gamer market in the 1990s.
Interplay, Simon and Schuster, Microprose and Activision released most of the best-known Star Trek games between 2000 and 2003. Titles like Star Trek: Armada, Star Trek: Elite Force and Star Trek: Bridge Commander were all published during this period, as were over half of all the other major Star Trek PC games. The absence of new titles after 2003 was due in large measure to a split and subsequent lawsuit between Activision and Viacom which ended in 2004.
With the departure of Activision in 2003, the franchise under the tenure of Paramount effectively came to a close. Since the end of 2005, CBS has assumed most franchise management, including games and other products. Even with no new licensed titles released during 2003-2006, the older games like Armada and Elite Force still have an avid fan base which keeps the small community going. Development of the new Star Trek: Online title is complete and the game was made available for sale on February 2, 2010.[4]
Commercial games
Fan games
In addition to commercial games, the fan community have produced a number of games and modifications
| Title | Platform | status | Link | type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netrek | Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix | active | http://www.netrek.org/ | multiplayer 2d shooter / strategy |
| Star Trek Supremacy | Windows | in development | http://www.startreksupremacy.com | Turn based strategy (BOTF clone) |
| Birth Of The Empires Trek Mod | Windows | in development | http://star-trek-games.com/ | Turn based strategy (BOTF clone) |
| Temporal Cold War | Windows | cancelled | http://www.enterprise-tcw.com | First person shooter (Half-Life 2 mod) |
| Trekwar | Windows, Linux, Mac, Unix | in development | http://www.trekwar.org | Massive multiplayer online turn based strategy |
| Star Trek Excalibur | Windows | in development | http://www.stexcalibur.com | Space simulator |
| Eraser Project | Windows | in development | http://www.eraserproject-mod.com | First person shooter (Crysis mod) |
| Begin | Windows / MS DOS | in development | http://www.starfleetproject.com | Tactical Starship Simulation |
Console
Electronic Games
- Star Trek Super Phaser 2 Target Game is similar to Laser Tag. (1976)
- Star Trek Phaser Battle Game is similar a tabletop arcade game. (1976)
Handheld electronic games
Numerous stand-alone electronic handheld and tabletop games have been produced by manufacturers like Bandai, Coleco, Konami, and others. Pair Match, manufactured by Bandai in 1984, appeared in several Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes.
See also
References
- Hailing Frequency Star Trek Gaming News - A community website with news and interviews about Star Trek Gaming. A bi-weekly podcast and live radio show, forums with over 2000 members.
- TrekCore Gaming Museum Information on all Star Trek games, by platform, and includes Current online games.
- Games at Memory Alpha
- Star Trek Games History by Victor1st of Star Trek Gamers , 2006
- 20Q Star Trek - An online artificial intelligence game that covers all classic Star Trek TV shows and movies, plus characters, gadgets and locations
- List of Star Trek games at BoardGameGeek
- ^ http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3419
- ^ Posting on official website for Vega Trek.
- ^ Mr Spock to lift lid on Star Trek Online, play.tm, Aug 6, 2008.
- ^ Star Trek Online website
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