Klingon Honor Guard, the first FPS game for Star Trek

When Klingon Honor Guard was released it was met with mixed reviews...as for the engine, they decided to go for the relatively new and untested Unreal engine.

KHG is basically one massive FPS game with you, the Klingon seeking honor and revenge wandering around solving puzzles and killing people...the puzzle solving is a bit iffy, you don't see a Klingon solving puzzles, they just kill people. You start the game in the middle of a training exercise, and quickly move into the real plot: save Chancellor Gowron by uncovering a sinister plot to overthrow the empire and mercilessly slaughtering the conspirators. The story is above par for your standard first-person shooter, and the well-known and liked Star Trek universe certainly helps draw the player in. As a Klingon warrior you get to use a varied arsenal of weapons, from your trusty D'k Tahg (a small blade you use for disembowelling your enemies or throwing into their backs) to the more impressive Bat'leth (the sword of honor, a traditional Klingon weapon). The game also includes energy weapons, from the standard disrupter pistol up to the Sith Har blaster and Particle Dispersal Cannon--although a true Klingon warrior must see the fear in his enemies' eyes before leaving his knife in their throat!

At that time the Unreal engine was notoriously buggy, not the refined one it is today, and the bugs were apparent all the way through the games from the various blips on the screen to full blown crashes for no apparent reason. Klingon Honor Guard though still is a testament to Microprose, after the disaster they had with Generations they did try there best to get the gamers back to their side...and it sort of worked...however, little did people know that in less than twelve months' time Microprose would cease trading.  It was after the release of Klingon honor guard that Microprose finally announced the full merger with Hasbro interactive, at the same time they also announced the development of a new star trek game for release in 1999.  Little did anyone know that this would be Microprose last game. 

At the same time everyone was thinking of Microprose new game for 1999 and while Activision was planning a new game for the same year S&S released their first game in 1998.  This new game would be a complete diversion from the normal Star Trek games, for the first time Star Trek gamers would be able to designed build and flying their own customizable starship.  Enter starship creator. 

Starship creator, released in 1997

 

Starship creator was S&S idea to give the general Star Trek game populace a chance to build design and fly their own starship.  However when the game was finally released in 1997 there were many problems, one of the major complaints about the game was the lack of different parts to make vessels, the other major complaint was the many bugs which caused the game to crash in mid end systems.  Starship creator as a standalone game still sold many units and even though there was many problems with the game it's still received a lot of good reviews from the new PC game sites that were appearing on the Internet.  The only problem was starship creator had a very short game life.  So while S&S was releasing starship creator, and Microprose was busy planning for the 1999 game many eyes turned towards Interplay.  Since the release of Starfleet Academy Interplay had remained silent throughout most of 1997.  However, at the beginning of 1998 interplay announced an expansion pack for Starfleet Academy called Chekov's lost missions. 

Even though Starfleet Academy was less than one year old, compared to new games like doom and quake it was already showing signs of age then there was the problem of faster computers of the year coupled with the new operating system of Windows 98 which starting to cause problems on some specific computers when people played Starfleet Academy.  To keep the shelf life of Starfleet Academy going Chekov's lost missions was designed immediately after the release of Starfleet Academy and released midway through 1998. 

Interplay's thank you to the people who waited for Starfleet Academy and an attempt to keep the shelf life of the game. 

The lost mission pack contained seven new missions plus two new net games however the biggest attraction for Starfleet Academy was the growing number of people who were playing it via TCP I. P. previous Star Trek games never had a very good multiplayer capacity however Starfleet Academy changed all that in an instant, the clan world of star trek gaming was now born.  With the release of the expansion pack for Starfleet Academy, Interplay also released various patches to fix the game for newer computers, and as the interest for the expansion pack grew the sales of the original Starfleet Academy started to rise again. 

Also at the beginning of 1998 interplay made the announcement of a whole brand new game based on the world of Vulcan. The game itself had been in planning since 1996 and was already 70% complete by the time the announcement was made in 1998.  The Secret of Vulcan Fury was advertised on the lost missions pack as a fully rendered cut scene. The interest from that scene alone caused a massive amount of interest for the new secret of Vulcan Fury game due for release at the end of 1999.  However the one thing that interplay never told anyone was the amount of money that went into the making of the game that was already 70% complete, by this point in 1998 interplay was almost bankrupt.  To alleviate that, Interplay released possibly one of their worst games ever in the hopes that the money received from this new game would alleviate some of the pressure from the bank balance. 

Star trek: Pinball, a game interplay would rather forget. 

Star Trek pinball was released at the very end of 1998 and was received with a lot of criticism from gaming magazines, star trek gamers, and basically everyone else.  What gave interplay the idea that a PC pinball game with pictures of starship's stuck in the background would sell well is anyone's guess, and to make matters worse at the very end of 1998 Microprose, interplay, and S&S Found out that in 1999 the entire game franchise would be up for lease once again. 

By the end of 1999 the technology of PC's was growing faster than ever and new game engine technologies was hitting the market and an ever increasing rate.  Newer companies started to appear at this point who took the gaming world by storm by releasing games which far outsold all of the star trek games combined to date.  Interplay and Microprose was now starting to lag behind in the gaming sector and the games they had released between 1996 and 1999 showed signs of age compared to the new game technologies being used by other companies.  The PC technology and game engine technology had changed so fast within the space of 2 years that both companies had to do something extra to keep the interest in trek games going.

The metamorphosis of Star Trek gaming had begun. 

1999 - The New Age