Bit more of a negative response than I was expecting. 😅
I'd also not that certain genres, particularly FPS or space combat, have IMO certain issues when it comes to star trek, an issue they share with Aliens, of all things. The primary weapons of the protagonist faction were never intended to be fired constantly for hours nor in large numbers, and sound incredibly grating very quickly. I think everyone who plays the ST Armada III mod very quickly learns how to zoom the camera out to the precise distance required to still see and manage your fleet without actually hearing the fleet.
Well I play Star Trek mods for SOASE all the time and I never have an issue with the sound. I actually like authentic Star Trek sound effects.
That's really just any FPS ever in the last 10 to 15 years that's not a modern military shooter. Elite Force was kinda weird for straying as far as it did from the stock halo rip off formula.
That's because Elite Force actually came out the same year as Halo CE, so Halo had yet to make waves in the genre.
No. As
@Battlegrinder said, most were bad or didn't get across the feel 'Trek. The only remotely good Star Trek game anybody remembers in STO, and even then it looked and felt terrible when it came out in 2010.
Star Trek games have two problems:
- The Star Trek IP was pretty much dead by the time licensed games started getting good. TNG ended in 1994 and Voyager started the year after, coinciding with the decline of the franchise's popularity. Trek fans revere DS9 today, but at the time it was screwed by the network in favor of Voyager, which nobody liked. None of the TNG movies lived up to the TOS films. Nemesis killed the franchise, resulting in Enterprise being cancelled during its 3rd season (they were told ahead of time that season 4 would be the last season, hence why S4's episodes went nuts). CBS didn't give a damn about Star Trek until the reboot trend started becoming popular, and the baby boomers who grew up with Star Trek were starting to die off so they had to act now in order to milk them. Baby boomers don't play video games so games were really made.
- Sturgeon's law is in full effect. Star Wars has hundreds of games but only a handful are really worth talking about (Tie Fighter, Rogue Squadron, Pod Racer, Lego Star Wars, the original Battlefront 2), and maybe a few others like the Kyle Katarn games. Star Trek never had that many games. The one and only somewhat decent 'Trek game is STO.
- One of the core problems with adapting Star Trek into a video game is that the gaming industry likes to stick to the template of just making a game about blowing stuff up. While some people would like to blow stuff up in the Trek setting, Trek fans want more variety than that. Again, STO is pretty much the only STO game that sorta scratches that itch (and even then you have to accept the fact that the vast majority of STO gameplay is blowing stuff up).
Given the current state of the entertainment industry, we will pretty much never get a good licensed Star Trek game. The Western AAA gaming industry is more stagnant than ever, and the creative teams and writers CBS assigns to the project won't be interested in trying to convey the spirit of Roddenberry or Berman era Trek that fans love.
Ok, this is too far lol.
STO is the only "remotely good" Star Trek game? That tells me you either didn't actually play many Star Trek games or your standards for games are unreasonably high. Starfleet Command? Armada? Bridge Commander? I will certainly defend those as at least halfway decent games. Yes, there is a bit of crap to sort through, much like there is with Star Wars (you left out Knights of the Old Republic, Republic Commando, and Empire at War, by the way.) But saying STO is the "one and only decent Trek game"? C'mon. Edit: And the fact that there are strategy game mods which position themselves as unofficial sequels to the Star Trek Armada series indicates that people do in fact remember that series, at least.
(Starfleet Academy is another favorite, with high production values, though it is more open to criticism. Particularly because it kind of failed to properly capture the feel of Star Trek space combat, feeling more like you're flying a space fighter than a starship.)
Pretty much this.
The problem comes down primarily to #3 though. Star Trek's problem is that it needed a Mass Effect sort of game; a story that revolves around the player and allows them to interact with the major races (ie, politics), an interesting crew, and making major decisions that affect the world around them. As well as areas to explore. People want to have the Star Trek experience.
The problem is what you get. I've not played an extensive amount of Star Trek games (because they mostly suck), but I have noticed a few trends.
1) Hero Worship -- I swear a single Star Trek game can't be made unless they try and throw a part to an actor whose been on the show. Almost every major title has had members of the main caste of any of the series in the game. I get that people might find it cool to meet Captain Picard or Data, but when it happens in almost every game--it goes from being cool to dull to annoying.
2) 2-Bit Player -- The player is often put in the position of not the hero, but a 2-bit player. Part of the problem is the nature of the show; it focuses on Starfleet. So unless you're a commander or a captain, you aren't really supposed to be the star of the show. So you get a lot of third string characters, like some security officer on Voyager that no one has heard of. Instead of immersing you in the world, you feel insiginificant.
3) Pew-Pew -- Instead of accepting that Star Trek fans are not really interested in blowing shit up, pretty much every Star Trek game focuses on space ship combat or intense phaser fights. STO is probably the worst, with obvious silly game mechanics as you fly around in your little ship and desperately try to pretend it's a much better game from 20 years ago. The ground combat is reality breaking; there is no ST style to the combat. Phaser rifles are basically no better than normal guns, but with red-orange pulses instead of bullets. If these battles were even halfway realistic, most players would have turned most of the little sandboxes into a smoldering hellscape.
4) I Can't Believe It's Not Halo -- Pretty much any FPS Star Trek game in the past 10-15 years. If I want to play Halo--or Mass Effect, I'll play those games.
The solution to Star Trek's problem of bad video games is they need a story-driven story similar in concept to Mass Effect. If Paramount wants a good Star Trek game, they need to more or less crib Shepard's introduction into the story and move it towards a sandbox game, with a large overarching story. Allow players the chance to play true to Starfleet's values or essentially go rogue. Allow them multiple ways to solve problems and address challenges. And for God's sake, do an original story. Not "Borg INVAS!0N" or "DS9, but on Adderall".
1. That certainly happens, though I think the show characters are used well in the favorites I've mentioned, certainly not something that detracts from the story.
2. Not an issue in my favorite games. Starfleet Academy has you as the captain of a cadet crew, Bridge Commander has you as the captain of your own ship. And Armada doesn't have an original player character, you simply control characters like Picard, Worf, Locutus, Sela, etc at different points in the story.
3. Um. I'm a Star Trek fan and I do like blowing stuff up, especially in space ship combat. Of course, I want
more than just blowing ships up in space, but I do enjoy Star Trek space sims. It's a little silly to pretend that Star Trek fans wouldn't even be interested in such things, space combat exists in Star Trek for a reason you know.
4. The only Star Trek shooter that's even been made as far as I know in the last 15 years was the 2013 game. I never bothered playing it, but yeah, it did seem to draw from Mass Effect 2 for its shooting (but sadly none of the RPG elements). Before that I think you have to go back to Elite Force 2 in 2003. And the first Elite Force came out the same year as Halo CE, so it would be a little unfair to accuse it of copying Halo.
One thing I can totally agree with is that a Mass Effect-style RPG would be perfect for Star Trek, the dream game. And it would bring things full circle, as Mass Effect obviously drew quite a bit of influence from Star Trek.
And that highlights a more recent problem with Star Trek. It's basically going to be an ideological warzone. If one were to be made, the suits would want it to tie into Star Trek Picard (or...STD...*shudder*)...which is NOT going to be popular with the fanbase, but instead with political activists and writers in Hollywood. You can be sure that Star Trek will probably suck for the next 10 years.
We're basically in the Dragonball GT of Star Trek, but with Liberal writers shitting their ideology onto every script. You're literally better off just starting your own sci-fi show and capturing the magic that the original ST did.
That's a fair point. Much as I feel nostalgia for some of the Star Trek games of the 90s and 00s, would I even
want the people in charge of Star Trek right now to make any games? Do I really want something set in the Discovery period or whatever, and laden with lot of "relevant" issues and commentary? No, not really.
No, that basic gameplay formula goes back to 1999 and
Starfleet Command. Sure the original few Starfleet Command games lacked 3d movement, but everything else you're talking about was there: energy management, maneuvering to hit weak shield facings, dealing with hazards.
The SFC series is probably one of the best Trek game series and still stand out as one of the few games that actually focused on commanding a capital ship in real time situations. To this day there are very VERY few games that actually go for that formula. Which drives me crazy, as commanding a capital ship in space is actually a lot more fun than Yet Another Space Fighter Game #37, since the Space Fighter genre peaked with Freespace 2 and has never seen a game it's equal since.
Starfleet Academy predates Starfleet Command and did the whole power and damage control management, shield facing, etc as well. Star Trek 25th Anniversary even had a form of that in 92. Though if you want to get really technical Starfleet Battles did all of that first with pen and paper.
I do really like Starfleet Command, though the downside is that it doesn't really have much in the way of a story campaign. My understanding is that Starfleet Academy was kind of a big budget bomb, so SFC was a lower budget project that reused assets and music from SFA and simply adapted the SFB ruleset to computers.
Did you ever try Bridge Commander?
No one else seems to remember Star Trek 25th Anniversary or Judgement Rites where you played the TOS crew, and if you had the CD-Rom versions you got full voice acting, not the Microprose published Star Trek Final Unity.
Another one that was neglected was Star Trek Klingon Honour Guard, which was basically an FPS on an early incarnation of the Unreal engine.
I remember 25th Anniversary! I had the CD version but I never got very far as a kid. I wouldn't call it a personal favorite, but it's a classic for sure. It actually did more to strike a balance between space combat and away missions than later games did.