Star Trek: Klingon Star Trek: Klingon, which predated Star Trek: Borg by a few months, was part adventure game and part Klingon-language trainer. And the language trainer itself is actually an acceptable product, provided you have the inclination to growl and bark out the guttural phonemes that comprise this fabricated language (maybe Simon & Schuster Interactive should consider an Esperanto trainer in the future.) There's even a speech-recognition system to see if you've mastered each word and phrase, and 24 minutes of "Power Klingon," featuring the voice of Michael "Worf" Dorn. But the game component - preposterously billed as "the ultimate interactive adventure" - is little more than a joke. Click to enlarge Admittedly, the video quality is fairly good for the time the product shipped, and the quality of acting is high as well - it should be, since it was directed by veteran Next Generation actor and director Jonathan Frakes. That's where the praises end, however, because even the best acting in the world can't turn these dull proceedings into any sort of adventure game. Even the premise - you play on a holodeck trying to "become" a Klingon - robs the game of any sense of urgency or meaning. Your holodeck persona is Pok, a young Klingon who must avenge the murder of his father. Sounds interesting, but in truth all you do is watch Frakes' movie unfold, clicking the mouse to freeze the action and pass the cursor over "information points" and to pick up snippets of Klingon culture - precisely the sort of thing that an encyclopedia should offer, not a game. Of course, there are moments when you'll have to put that knowledge to the test. At certain points, the video stops and you must click on an appropriate object to indicate what course of action you'll take. Make the right decision, and the video continues along; make the wrong one, and you see an end-game sequence or - more often than not - you are forced to watch the video up to the decision point once again. The only saving grace in this trial-and-error fiasco is that the wise would-be Klingon can save his game at any time during the video: If you saved right before the decision point, you can at least avoid the drudgery of watching it again. Click to enlarge Star Trek: Borg Still, this "ultimate interactive adventure" had the plus of a language trainer. Star Trek: Borg, on the other hand, has no such companion disc and is therefore an even greater flop. Assuming the role of a Starfleet cadet, you're singled out by Q because he knows your father died at the hands of the Borg and you're being forced to leave the ship just as it's about to leave for battle with the Borg. With a snap of his fingers, you're transported back to your dad's ship mere hours before his death, and you're given the chance to save his life - only to stumble into a headache-inducing routine of clicking for information, clicking to make decisions, clicking to fire a phaser ... well, you get the idea. At least Simon & Schuster Interactive's upcoming Star Trek games (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Dominion Wars) look more promising. But only time will tell if these games will deliver a gripping Trek experience - and we don't have Q around to zip us into the future to find out. Activision As you already know, there is a host of Star Trek games scheduled to be released over the next few months, and two of the most promising are Activision's Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force. Both games have development teams with excellent track records: Elite Force is being created by Raven Software (Hexen, Heretic, and their sequels), while Armada will be the latest from the team that gave us Dark Reign. So why did Activision's first Star Trek title turn out to such a dull, unsatisfying game? Next: Hidden Evil and Harbinger