Design by Marty Smith
Enterprise is dead, and as a Star Trek fan, I know I should feel sad. But I don't. You know things are pretty bad for the franchise when someone like me doesn't care that UPN is canceling its low-rated Star Trek prequel at the end of this season. I grew up with Star Trek. I'm the editor at GameSpot who has the cutaway poster of the Enterprise-D at my desk. But let's be honest: Trek has been going downhill since the end of Deep Space Nine. The same can be said of the gaming franchise, which has never really had a golden moment. Sure, there have been occasional gems, but the vast majority of Star Trek games have been mediocre and forgettable. So how do we turn things around for Star Trek games? It may seem difficult now that there don't appear to be any new Star Trek television series for the foreseeable future, but it's not impossible.
Admittedly, things looked downright bleak when, in 2003, Activision filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Viacom, the corporate face of the Star Trek franchise. In 1998, Activision had a 10-year license to publish all Star Trek games. But five years later, in its lawsuit, Activision accused Viacom of allowing the Star Trek franchise to "stagnate and decay." Viacom defended its handling of the franchise, and the following year Activision dumped the license. Now, a year later, things are finally starting to settle, and there are hints of new games on the horizon, including an online role-playing game. A lot of these projects are some time away from completion though, so we'd like to offer some ideas as to how to turn the franchise around. Some of these suggestions may come across as common sense, but experience has shown that they bear repeating.
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder -- Aside from the excellent Star Trek: The Birds of Prey, a mobile game, there are no Star Trek games scheduled for release this year. The last console game was Star Trek: Shattered Universe, which debuted over a year ago, and the last PC game was 2003's Elite Force II. So yes, we've hit a dry spell, but that's good. One of the problems that Star Trek has had in recent years is oversaturation. Just as there were too many television episodes, there were too many games. In 2000 and 2001, we were inundated with at least 13 new Star Trek games, or basically about one every two months. That's an insane pace, and it was completely unrealistic of Viacom to expect fans to shell out $50 every two months. Like the television arm of the franchise, the gaming arm needs a break to recharge its batteries and to let the audience fatigue fade away.
Quality, not Quantity -- This is tied in to the first point, but it's still a problem. Essentially, Star Trek has tried to clone whatever the hot genre of the moment was. There have been real-time strategy games, a tactical squad game, various first-person shooters, and even a collectible card game. Never mind that the justification for a lot of these games was very thin. For example, Star Trek: New Worlds was a ground-based real-time strategy game set in the original television series. Yeah, that's right. Needless to say, New Worlds bombed miserably. Star Trek is about starships and naval combat, not about chopping down trees and mining ore. Don't try to shoehorn the franchise into a genre it obviously doesn't belong in. Historically, the best Star Trek games have been adventure games, because they best capture the feeling of the show. If you've ever played any of Interplay's excellent Trek-based adventures, such as Star Trek: Judgment Rites, then you'll know exactly what I mean.
Ditch LCARS -- This explanation is going to get geeky, but when you watch The Next Generation, Voyager, or Deep Space Nine, the curvy interface on the computer screens is known as LCARS, the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System. LCARS is essentially the Windows of the Trek world. And no offense to Michael Okuda, the Star Trek production whiz who created it, but LCARS sucks as a user interface for games. Far too often, Trek games incorporate the LCARS look and feel into their user interfaces, and it's needlessly confusing. In some cases, the interface eats up more space than the actual game itself (Star Trek: The Next Generation: Birth of the Federation is a perfect example). Designers obviously need to keep LCARS in some form to stay in theme, but they shouldn't use it as an interface.
Ease up, Viacom -- One of the problems with dealing with any licensed product is that the license holder, in this case Viacom, tends to nix lots of things that it deems risky. While it's understandable that Viacom wants to protect the franchise, the attitude it takes is too controlling and distrusting of fans. For years, I was told by game producers that the reason you can't name your ships in Star Trek games is that someone might rename the Enterprise as an obscenity. All I can say is that if you want people to have an investment in your product, you have to give them some control over it. Trust in the fans, Viacom. Yeah, some bad things might happen, but the good that it will generate will far outweigh the bad.
Ditch Picard -- Don't get me wrong, I adore Patrick Stewart. In college when we had those stupid and endless Kirk-versus-Picard debates, I was totally on Picard's side. But we don't need him to provide voice work for practically every single Trek game. And frankly, we don't need any of the television actors for the games. Star Trek is about a big galaxy full of starships and adventures, so it's always a bit weird that we keep running into the same people over and over again. Besides, Patrick sounds like he's been phoning it in the last couple of games. Save the money from the celebrity voice work and spend it more on the quality of the game. The one exception to this rule is George Takei, or Sulu from the original series. We here at GameSpot could listen to him say "Oh my" all day.
It's About the Gameplay -- At the end of the day, it ultimately comes down to whether or not the game is fun. This is a tough one, because game making is still as much an art as it is a science. But what Viacom can do is look for the best talent available to turn the franchise around. LucasArts turned to BioWare, the best developer of role-playing games in North America, and the result was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one of the best things to happen to Star Wars in decades. Speaking of which, an amazing single-player role-playing game could be what the franchise needs just now...
Follow Through -- Star Trek Bridge Commander is the one game that I wanted to really like. It was developed by Larry Holland's Totally Games, the same group responsible for the acclaimed Star Wars: TIE Fighter. However, the game's killer premise was hampered by limited gameplay. Bridge Commander would probably best be called Button Commander, as your main job was to do what your executive officer told you to. But with a little more work, Bridge Commander could have been the greatest Trek game ever. All they needed to do was give the player more control and more freedom to explore. Hopefully someone will get the formula right one day.
These are just some ideas to turn around Trek gaming. The franchise as a whole is at a low point now, but there are better days ahead. And part of being a Star Trek fan is having an enduring faith in the future. But just because we're loyal fans doesn't mean we can be taken advantage of. If there's any lesson in all of this, it's that Viacom needs to stop milking its fans and start treating them better. That said, ironically the greatest Star Trek game I've ever played isn't even an official Star Trek game. It's Netrek, one of the first Internet games ever made and still a fun and addicting game. Go check it out on Google. It may help you get through this dry spell easier. Do you have any ideas on what you'd like to see in a Star Trek game? Share them in our discussion forum, by clicking the button below!
GameSpot Rescue - Star Trek Games
Let's be honest: Trek has been going downhill since the end of Deep Space Nine. The same can be said of the gaming franchise, which has never really had a golden moment. So how do we turn things around for Star Trek games?
