Bridge Commander Game Info

Bridge Commander is one of the more recent releases, unfortunately now being killed off by the release of Starfleet Command III...but it's still one hell of a game though...

Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a creation that includes a lot of Mass. The game itself takes place in space, while you, Captain, take control of a spanking new Capital class ship, the game circles around taking control of it wisely.

The game itself tries to imitate the exact procedure of controlling the ship based on the TV show(s), at your command you will find the tactical warfare, warping and cruising to different parts of the universe, ship power/repair management and even scanning the diverse sectors your in. Surely you won't be alone in your travels nor it is expected from you to do all of the above physically, that's why you are accompanied by your cheerful staff that always seem to stare at you, especially Saffi (your first officer).

The game starts when you are assigned to the dauntless (from a Non-Trekkie point of view, a Spaceship similar to the enterprise :P), Anyway, you fill the blank the previous captain held, for the reason of being, well, Dead (yea, much to live up to). Anyway, The crew does mention your inexperience, partially to maintain the flow of the storyline and to make you believe that its OK to be dumb at first (till you 'gain' experience). Only time will reveal the mysteries lurking in space for you, inexperienced captain, needless to say, a classical trek situation.

One of the really cool features is Picard, yes, Captain picard, as he makes a virtual appearance, it seemed he was willing enough to do some voice-overs for the game, which gives it just a tad more authenticity but considering its only for the tutorials part of the game, its a bit of a let down (still, its a great feature)

The game play aspect of the game is rather interesting, for once, you get to control a large scale, capital ship, real commands with real crew, it gives the genre a wicked twist considering the 'traditional' space sims. The voice-overs are well done and they are very convincing as well as non-repetitive mostly. The game play goes forwards in a form of episodes, levels if you like, and gives a true 'TV' feeling as well as a feeling of self-control, you control the ship, the game control's you, fail and die, succeed and proceed.

The engine was the main letdown really, although it does do the job, it doesn't do it in its best possible form, the engine feels a bit outdated, too little galaxy 'effects', it lacks an active galaxy where you look at far away moving star dusts or suns far far away. The engine itself also Looks outdated, comparing it to the Independence War 2 engine or even the FreeSpace 2 engine, it does not fully leap into amazing boundaries. Let not be mistaken though, the engine is more than sufficient to deliver an authentic, action packed (nerve wrecking at times) game, the cutscenes especially are made to look like their TV counterparts, with 'hollywoodish' camera movement and possitioning. The lighting effects are rather impressive also, the beamed weapons, torpedoes as well as different 'general' particle based emissions look quite 'blending' and real, they give more character to the general atmosphere of space exploration and such.

One more great aspect of the game is the crew members and the game characters in general, you can easily make the difference between humans, Romulans and klingons, each with their unique look, one letdown was the lip-sync, or lip movement for that matter, after seeing Lithtech's capabilities in Nolf, I'd say a better lip-sync engine should have been created or used, specially that communicating is a key part of the game.

So saying that this game is the perfect Space Simulator? not exactly; Yet another abomination from the Star Trek universe? Far from it; If your into Star Trek, I think you will enjoy this title in more than one way, assuming the role of the captain will leave you in charge in a lean mean, space machine, After all, no title is perfect right? The other major aspect of the game is the massive multiplayer that goes on with it, pitting whole fleets of ships against each other.

All in all, Bridge Commander is a well built game, even though the bugs found in it are a bit annoying the patch released for the game does solve most of them. It's just a pity that Activision have seemed to have forgotten all about this game...

Bridge Commander Resources

For more details....

Official Site http://www.bridgecommander.com/

BC Files: http://www.bcfiles.com

Bridge Commander Universe: http://www.3dactionplanet.com/bridgecommander/

Write up by Nicola Venra

15/11/2002 / Updated 11/12/2003