Starfleet Academy Info
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Released:
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1997 (announced 1994)
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Produced By:
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Interplay
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Developed By:
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Interplay
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Screenshots of
Starfleet Academy
Watch the SFA intro movie
Interplay gambles...and loses...
Just after the release of Judgement Rites and still riding high on the
success of 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites Interplay announce a new Star
Trek game that took the breaths away of all trek and gaming fans
alike...Starfleet Academy.
SF:A promised to be the FIRST 2/3d rendered first person perspective games of
the genre, and one of the first of it's kind that featured 3d space combat. You
see by this time (94-95) MMX technology was on the horizon and Intel and the big
comp makers were starting to churn out more and more 3d based 4 to 8mb graphics
cards that took the gaming world by storm (like Trident's Via-Vision 8mb Card).
While first person perspective games like Quake were now pounding up the best
sales boards for games all over the world Interplay was starting to see the
honeymoon period between itself and the games fans starting to subside.
The reviews that were given promised first person interaction in the Academy
where the player can actually walk around the complex and interact with its
surroundings. Interplay hedged a bet that they would be able to pull it off with
the relatively new Quake engine with some tweaks added to it...
There bet cost them 3 years of release dates...
Interplay poured vast amounts of resources into Starfleet Academy it turned out
that they would end up making a new engine themselves so the game would actually
be playable. By the time 1996 hit Paramount were dishing out new licenses to
Spectrum Holobyte (the old MicroProse) and were wondering just what the hell
Interplay were doing...in fact everyone was wondering what the hell they were
doing.
When Starfleet Academy was finally released in the summer of 1997 it hit the
market with a thud. The game itself was another masterpiece, a story driven epic
that only Interplay could release, but the engine was already 2 years old and
the graphics looked horribly outdated.
Gamers who'd expected plenty of interaction at the academy discovered that
all the scenes there were handled with full-motion video clips. Though the clips
were of excellent quality and featured William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter
Koenig, interaction was limited to dialogue selections - not the sort of
immersive experience fans had been waiting so long for.
This could have been compensated for if Starfleet Academy had served up some
sizzling space combat, but unfortunately the game fell a bit flat in this area
as well. With no option to talk to crew members save at critical points during
play (via a choice of dialogue selections, just like at the academy), about all
that was left for you to do was make sure damage-control teams were sent to the
right place and handle energy allocation. Though many of the missions were
rather tricky, the experience (including the rather poor graphics) just didn't
compare to the other space-combat sims Starfleet Academy was going up against,
and numerous user reports of various bugs didn't help matters. In the end,
Starfleet Academy wasn't a bad game; it just wasn't all it could have been. It
did manage to reach the number three spot on the PC Data Hit List in September
1997, but it fell to number 16 the next month before dropping out of the Top 20
altogether.
Interplay released Chekov's Lost Missions as an expansion pack for the game,
in itself it did manage to save SF:A's shelf life, but Starfleet Academy will
always be known as Interplays 'Game that just wasn't all there'...
To this day though SFA is still being played online...so the multiplayer
aspect of the game does have a good side to it.
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Cheats |
Knat attack:
Type knat attack when the "Balance Of Terror" mission starts, before going to
warp. The Starbase will disappear and Knats with the names of the development
team will appear.
Reload photon torpedoes:
Type ****tiberius after the first battle of mission 7, enter within transporter
range of the Starbase, and press I.
Fire while cloaked:
Select the "Create Mission" option and choose any ship with a cloak. Then,
simply type car within a few seconds of each other at any point. Note: Your
shields are down in this mode -- if you are damaged and venting something into
space your opponent will be able to track you
Powered-up photon torpedoes:
Type $punish in the "Omega 12-300" mission.
Kill the Romulan near Raven:
Type mercury in the "End Game" mission.
Kill Sherak:
Type $->me! in the "Smugglers Den" mission.
Hint: Easy Omega 12-300 mission:
Back away from the first fight at the Starbase. The Starbase will destroy two
Venturi ships, and you must destroy one. Warp to Omega 12-300. Scan the derelict
ship and hail them. You will notice that the ship's status is blue, which means
that it will not attack you. Scan all the ships, and they will all turn blue,
except for the ship with Alshoff. Target his phasers and destroy them. Now
target his engineering section and destroy him. This is much easier than
fighting at least six ships during this mission.
Information in this section was contributed by Kyle Haight.
Hint: Boosting your starship:
When you boost your shields, phasers, and photon torpedoes you cannot go to
warp. To remedy this, go to Green Alert. You may now warp because those systems
are no longer activated.
Hint: Visit any system:
Complete the Alpha Herculae mission but do not contact the Starbase. Use the
navigation screen on the bridge to plot a course back to Alpha Herculae by
typing it in when you are there on the screen. If the Hawking is still there,
destroy it. Use the navigation screen to plot a course back to the Starbase. Do
not hail the Starbase. Use the navigation subscreen to plot a course to Dante.
You can now plot a course to any system you want. Some systems are not used in
the game and appear as "Undefined Name" in the system name box . They are at the
following coordinates. These systems and their planets do not have any names.
The planets are simply named planet 20, planet 15, planet 2, etc.
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For more details....
http://www.interplay.com/games/product.asp?GameID=212
Write up by Nicola Venra
25/10/2002
