The History Of Star Trek PC Gaming
1999 - The New Age
Activision's seals all contracts in 1999
At the end of 1998, Viacom announced that all of the Star Trek game franchise licenses would be up for tenure in 1999. At the beginning of February, 1999 an announcement was made that would seal the fate of Microprose Interplay and Simon and Schuster. By the beginning of January, 1999 Interplay and Microprose were already in serious financial trouble the only one of the three original publishers that was left in a good financial position was Simon and Schuster the main reason being is that Simon and Schuster was owned by Viacom.
The problems for Microprose however was a lot worse, having been taken over by Hasbro interactive, Hasbro proceeded to strip down Microprose resources. What was left of Microprose was only a shadow of there former self in 1995, at the same time Interplay was also in the process of merging with another company. Titan entertainment, based in France, took over interplay early 1999, as the merge progressed several staff of Interplay were released causing a shortage of staff. 1998 interplay announced they would be releasing two games in 1999, the first game was Secret of Vulcan fury and the second game would later be called Starfleet Command. In March, 1999 interplay quietly cancelled the rest of the development for secret of Vulcan fury. The amount of money invested in Secret of Vulcan Fury by interplay is still unknown however the game itself was already in development for three years and was reportedly 90% complete, we can only guess that the staff shortages at Interplay was so drastic that they just did not have the time nor the staff nor the money to complete the game.
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1999 was also one of the high points of the Star Trek franchise, with both DS9 and Voyager winding up soon the episodes being shown were getting better and better. 1999 was also the year when technology for the PC started to make leaps and bounds, so much infact that everyone had problems keeping up with it. The appearance of graphics cards which was able to render antialiased pixels hit the market and the gaming world immediately changed. More and more people started to buy Star Trek games as the prices of new games in the market started to drop significantly in some countries, the wash of new players entering Star Trek gaming at the turn of the year by buying the older games released between 1996 and 1998 started to overstrain the already burgeoning community sites appearing at that time.
Other sites started to show up (the distant predecessor of this site opened in 1999) and along with the new wave of gamers came new ways of playing the games. Small "clans" started to appear to play the older games like Starfleet Academy more frequently. What was needed was a full out multiplay game for Star Trek, and Microprose hit the mark first. While interplay was having serious problems Microprose on the other hand released what would ultimately be their last and best known game...Master Of Orion meet's Star Trek...
Birth of the federation, the swan song of Microprose
Birth of the Federation allows players to take the role of one the five major races in the game: Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, and Cardassian. Each of the races has their own ships, technologies, advantages, and playing styles. The roles fall pretty much in line with the Next Generation series. For instance, the Federation are explorers and the Klingons are honourable warriors.
The management of your empire is somewhat more streamlined than MOO, as you only need to manage the system not each of the planets in the system. Each system produces energy, food, industry, credits, intelligence, research, morale, population and possibly dilithium (which is used for starship construction). The solar system window is where you'll be doing most of your system management including building structures/ships and assigning the population of your system to the tasks of farming, industry, energy production, intelligence operations, and research. This is also where you will manage the distribution of energy among the structures that require power to be activated.
The flip side to diplomacy is espionage. Here, the total amount of intelligence points empire-wide is allocated to the shady side of running an empire. Points can be allocated to total internal security (defence) or divided up in any portion among the four races in either espionage or sabotage. Several sub-categories can be chosen from, such as general, military, and economy. The total number of points allocated to a particular task determines how often the player will receive updates on the other race's activities or even be given the opportunity to do a little wrench-throwing.
There are other aspects to the game such as setting up trade routes, which are only available among friendly races who are not members of your empire/federation. The amount of trade is determined automatically by the sizes of the two systems trading. Additional trade routes become available to a system once it reaches a certain size. Of course, to even trade in the first place requires the system be a minimum size. Trade is important because credits (cash) can be used to buy production early (very useful especially in the early game) and to win favour with other races. Don't let the warnings and criticisms fool you, the first week or so of playing Birth of the Federation is as addictive and compelling a game experience as anyone can have.
Birth of the Federation also had something in generous amounts that other games previously for Star Trek didn't have, a huge multiplay capacity.
Two months after the release of birth of the federation, and after serious complaints about the many bugs with the game Microprose released a patch, The patch managed to alleviate some of the problems with the turn 120 bug which have caused some serious problems with the game previously. However, In June of 1999 Hasbro Interactive filed a bankruptcy notice for Microprose, all support for all of Microprose original games ended.
Microprose file's for bankruptcy 2 months after the
release of Birth of the Federation
The bankruptcy of Microprose signalled the start of the end of the old age of Star Trek gaming , by this point in time Activision was now holding all the cards. However in July of 1999 Interplay finally managed to get back on track, the game they released its still hailed as one of the golden games of the old age of Star Trek gaming and is also considered a mini franchise within the main gaming franchise, spawning three sequels, two by Interplay, and one by Activision, the original game took Amarillo design bureaus board game Starfleet battles and turned it into one of the best known Interplay Star Trek games to date. Enter Starfleet Command.
Starfleet command, one of the best known games by Interplay.
Starfleet Command put Trek back on track after the disaster of Starfleet Academy.
Starfleet Command gives players the chance to play as one of six races or governments inspired by the series - the Federation, Romulans, Klingons, Lyrans, Gorn, and Hydrans - and take command of an entire fleet of ships spanning three different time periods. Using "prestige points," you can buy and outfit new ships, and the 3D ship models are highly impressive. Starfleet Command isn't perfect - more than one critic had a problem with the 2D "playing field" on which battles took place. Target identification could be cumbersome, and some of the AI was suspect - but it was the biggest Star Trek success for Interplay in two years. Fans gave it glowing praise, something they hadn't bestowed on Interplay in a long, long time.
To this day Starfleet Command is one of the longest running serials of trek games, with Starfleet Command 1, Starfleet Command 2 - Empire's At War, Starfleet Command 2 - Orion Pirates and the new Starfleet Command III.
Starfleet command put Interplay back on track and the stage was set for a massive battle between Interplay and Activision to win the gaming hearts of the Star Trek populace. Between October and December of 1999, Interplay, Activision, and Simon and Schuster all announced that they would be releasing games in the year of 2000. Since this would be the last year of Simon and Schuster's tenure of taking care of the deep space nine franchise they announced in the fall of 1999 that they would be making a game based on deep space nine due for release in the fall of 2000. However it was the announcements made by both Activision and Interplay that got a lot of web sites, gaming magazines and gamers interested in what they were doing. Both interplay and Activision announced that they would be releasing three games each in 2000. The war had begun.
However in 1998 when Activision was announced to be taking over the franchise, Activision announced that they would release a game in 1999.
Hidden Evil, the first game released by Activision.
The game itself picks up right after where the film Star Trek: Insurrection left off...the aftermath of the whole conspiracy. In it you play a character called Sovak, an ensign who has always wanted to be on the Enterprise under Picards captaincy...
The pre-game interface is very easy to navigate and looks a just like a computer panel that you would find aboard any ship in the ST universe. This title is chock full of cut-scenes that are well done if a bit grainy. Some of them feature FMV from the Insurrection movie, and I found that to be slightly cheap. Moving Sovak around the levels is quite intuitive, especially if you are familiar with the control of other 2D/3D games like Resident Evil. For those of you who are not, let me explain. The characters themselves are all 3D, but the actual environments are pre-rendered 2D backgrounds. That's what makes the wonderful graphics in these types of games possible. As with all games of this nature, the camera is in a fixed position, and changes as you move from area to area. This can be confusing if not done right, and for the most part, Hidden Evil gets the job done, showing off their wonderful levels from multiple angles. Occasionally though, this can get annoying as you can get lost fairly easily if you don't pay attention to where you're going.
The inventory is also fairly easy to use, and features some items that you will immediately recognize such as the obligatory phaser, tri-corder, hypo-spray, and of course the communicator/insignia thingy which allows you to contact Picard and Data pretty much at will. Sometimes they will give you valuable clues to completing an objective. Along the way you will pick up other items such as the Romulan Disruptor, and a DNA sampler, but not too much else that is worth mentioning.
Hidden evil as Activison's first PC game for star trek was a good time for them, however, a lot of criticism started to surface. The biggest problem with hidden evil was the game was two short, the game itself was released in December of 1999 by January of 2000 the game was laying on many people shelves gathering dust.
Activision's first game in the Star Trek franchise is one they would rather forget.
By the end of 1999 the entire Star Trek gaming franchise had changed beyond all recognition, Microprose had went bankrupt, Interplay was taken over, Simon and Schuster were releasing one more game and giving up their license, and Activision would be crowned king. The year of 2000 would see interplay and Activision going head to head in one final gaming battle for domination.