Star Trek: The Next Generation--A Final Unity Review

At last, a well-executed game based on the recent batch of Star Trek shows. The game doesn't waste any time: five minutes into gameplay, the player is confronted with a violation of Federation space, a group of alien defectors requesting political asylum, and a very large and pissed-off Romulan pursuit ship. For me, part of A Final Unity's appeal may be because I'm so used to computer games' bad voice-acting and HORRIBLE dialogue. Next to that stuff, this title's decent writing and Patrick Stewart's thespian baritone seem like the last batch of Sno-Cones in Hell. (In fact, the voice talent of the entire cast is here.) Further, almost every aspect of the game—save-screens, astrogation, tactical combat, even the design of the manual—is presented in a very attractive, straight-faced style consistent with what I shall call Star Fleet Aesthetics. Players less interested in starship operations and more excited by living the lives of their favorite Star Trek characters may ‘delegate' technical operations such as combat and power routing to crew members if they wish, but the hard-core, armchair starship commander can take full control—a very nice arrangement. In fact, if the game has a notable flaw, it may be that options are sometimes a little too open, and the player's range of choices a little too broad. (But of course if we game reviewers didn't bitch about something, nobody would read our stuff.) Overall, this game offers an excellent extension of the feel of the show, and a solid game design as well.