The History Of Star Trek PC Gaming
1995 & 1996 - A Time Of Change
The Interplay & Microprose Gamble
Interplay, riding high on the sales of 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites
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Microprose, the new kid's on the block with promises of new ground breaking
games.
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By the time the mid 90's approached it became apparent that the age of the
1st generation console was thriving. With the NES,
SNES and SEGA systems came a whole new gaming world of opportunity. In 1995 more
than a dozen titles for Star Trek games was announced for the new generation
gaming consoles, hand held devices like the 1st and 2nd
generation Nintendo Game Boy already had "Ported" versions of Interplay's 25th
Anniversary for them with the cut down scroll engine (and no
colour) and sales were as usual climbing high.
1995 however also seen the advent of the first true 3d game engines, and
nothing would be the same again. iD Software was the first to make heavy use of
the new engines with games like Quake which was instant best sellers all across
the world with never before seen sales figures.
The release of the new Microsoft Windows 1995
operating system made PC's a lot more easier to use than the old Windows 3.1
OS. New leaps in technology and the arrival of the 2nd generation
80486 processors with motherboard which could take more and more RAM made
sure that the world of the PC was starting to overtake the world of the
console for sheer gaming compatibility. By this point in time
Activision (nope, they still ain't part of the franchise yet) was already
producing and releasing the smash hit Mechwarrior series, Interplay also
started to get in on the act outside of the trek gaming world by releasing
the first version of Virtual Pool which was an instant smash hit.
Older games that once was the talking point of the gaming world like
Judgement Rites and 25th Anniversary was soon forgotten about in the fickle
world of the gaming industry, to make matters worse Interplay was showing
the first signs of trouble in the Star Trek gaming franchise.
1995 promised to be a good year for Interplay, S&S and Microprose, but the
first few months were met by disaster for Interplay. There "new generation"
game, Starfleet Academy, got it's released date held back to 1996 due to
programming problems with the over complex cinematic and overlay engine which
they were designing from scratch for the game. By this point in time Interplay
had poured vast sum's of money into the development of this game and time, and
money was starting to run out. Whether due to the sheer complexity of the engine
or not, a lot of people were disappointed that they had to wait until 1996...if
only it did get released in 1996, things might have been easier for Interplay.
S&S Interactive were still riding high on the success of the TNG Interactive
Manual. 1995 S&S was developing 2 new titles slated
for release in 1996, Star Trek Borg, and Star Trek Klingon.
However most peoples thought's turned to Microprose.
Microprose/Spectrum Holobyte release there first game in
1995
Spectrum Holobyte as they were known back then was
already an established gaming developer having been making games since 1989
for the Amiga and Atari consoles. More famous as the developer of the
Sid Meiyer Civilization series of games until Civ 2 they had a lot of
experience in the deep immersive game play style. Where
Interplay excelled in story telling, Spectrum Holobyte/Microprose excelled
in the intricate details of plot lines and story telling. Released
a year late, there first foray into the Star Trek gaming franchise was a
massive success.
The first PC game release for
Microprose, a massive success.
Spectrum spent a FORTUNE on this game, with voice casting of
almost the entire cast of the TNG series.
For its time, the production values of AFU are top notch. The film clips are
impressive, and a "Holodeck" feature in the game allows you to watch cut scenes
again and again to your heart's content. The graphics are well drawn, and all
the main characters in ST:TNG are rendered in almost perfect fidelity with their
real life counterparts. The voice acting stands out as one of the best voice
tracks ever added to computer games. Ironically, the only real problem is that
there is sometimes so much details in the background shots that, on occasions,
it is difficult to pick out the hotspots.
The game is somewhat hardware intensive, although most of the installation
bugs that once heavily plagued the game now appear moot with the hardware
currently available. Back in 1995, the game really did not run well without a
high end 486 and 16 MB of RAM and that was part of the problem. Microprose had
made the game so high end spec for it's time that a lot of people simply
couldn't play it. It was said that A Final Unity forced people to upgrade or buy
a new PC just to play the game. Games like Quake which was released a year later
didn't even need the requirements of A Final Unity but Microprose hedged a
gamble along with Interplay in the latter end of 1994 that the PC industry led
by people like Intel and the new Windows operating system would start to make
fair sized leaps forward in technology and software.
The gamble paid off for Microprose, A final Unity was a massive success in
sales and reviews. Some critics thought the game was too detailed but the cut
scenes and the rendering of the characters from the TV show was so ahead of it's
time for the mid 90's that a lot of people took the bad and covered it up with
the good. A Final Unity set Microprose up as a major runner in the Star Trek
game franchise, and it started to get Interplay worried.
By the end of 1995 it was becoming obvious to a lot of gaming insiders that
Interplay's own good fortune had put them in a bad state of affairs. At the end
of 1993 to the end of 1994 Interplay signed contracts with other publishers to
develop no less than 20 PC game titles to be released in 1995
and 1996, even today that kind of commitment is unheard of. Interplay
started to outsource development of games to places like 14 degrees east and do
a lot of the base programming of the games in house. The demand for Interplays
talent was outstripping there resources and the company started to struggle with
the workload. Combined with this was the rumours that Viacom was selling off one
last chunk of the PC game franchise...rumours which became fact at the end of
1997.
S&S next foray in the franchise,
Star Trek: Klingon - 1996
As February of 1996 passed S&S, Interplay, Microprose were all
hard at work in there dark rooms planning the downfall of each
other. The first to release was S&S with one of there best known
interactive CD ROM's...Star Trek: Klingon. ST: Klingon was a
full 3 CD set which was unheard of in those days. The game
wasn't
so much of a game, it was more like an interactive TV Episode
directed by Jonathan Frakes (riker in TNG) and starring quite a
few of the TNG cast. By this point in time TNG was off the air
having finished it's 7 season run, Deep Space 9 and Voyager was
airing so the TNG fans found Star Trek: Klingon to be a welcome
homage to the days of The Next Generation. Although Star Trek:
Klingon did fair in sales and wasn't near as good as the sales
figures of Interplays previous games the critics loved what S&S
had done. S&S had managed to bring the world of TNG into the PC,
something which they would repeat again at the end of the year.
As the fall of 1996 approached people started to look at Interplay, and seen
silence.
In October of 1996 Interplay announced that Starfleet Academy was being held
back for yet another year, making Starfleet Academy
now a game in production for 3 successive years with 2 years
of held back release dates. The worst part is Interplay didn't have
anything else to release for the PC Trek franchise, all of Interplay's eggs was
now in one basket with Starfleet Academy. Not so long after the announcement
about Starfleet Academy, S&S released another gem...
S&S last release for 1996, Star Trek: Borg
Once more S&S pulled out the stops with the motion picture
editing of the time for the PC and released Star Trek: Borg, in
it you "co star" with John De Lancie better known as "Q". Once
more S&S got loads of credit and applause for an interactive
move and everyone was happy. Everyone that is, except for
Interplay.
Microprose and S&S had managed to release games for 2006. Interplay was now
in deep, deep trouble, 1997 would be make or break
time for them.
1997 - Interplay's Long
Gamble
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