Star Trek: New Worlds Preview

By Gavin Hachiya Wasserman, GameSpotPosted Aug 23, 2000 1:10 pm PT

This in-depth preview looks at the three playable factions, the enemy races, units, graphics, and more.

Interplay's Star Trek: New Worlds may surprise Trek fans. Tank combat and artillery tactics are familiar staples of the real-time strategy genre, but they are unexplored country in Star Trek games. While some starships make appearances in the storyline, New Worlds is not about ship-to-ship space combat; it focuses strictly on planetary exploration, colonization, and conflict.

Star Trek: New Worlds begins when a Romulan experiment in the Neutral Zone accidentally creates the Tabula Rasa anomaly. The anomaly is filled with new systems that bear two types of planets: Those capable of supporting life and those rich with deposits of dilithium crystal. Both types are valuable to the game's playable factions - the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Empire - who quickly embark on a spree of exploration and colonization.

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While some unit differences distinguish the factions, the core variance among each of them is cultural. The Federation seeks to explore, understand, and benefit from the anomaly while it cooperates with indigenous life-forms. The Klingons' answer to most everything is the use of overwhelming force. Conversely, the Romulans always look to the dark side of their logical Vulcan heritage - they calculate negotiation or annihilation in terms of acceptable losses and expediency. While the missions we've been playing in this early build boil down to destroying or capturing structures and units, the particular campaigns are flavored by the cultural nuances of each faction. Federation and Klingon forces might both be instructed to destroy an enemy facility, but the Federation will do so to stop an attack, while the Klingons will do so for vengeance and honor. The result is the same, but the game dynamic is not.

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In addition to Alpha Quadrant rivals, each faction has to contend with four alien races. The Orion Pirates, who are fast, durable, and armed with ion weapons, plague these rich worlds. They can dodge photon artillery and evade defending units while they attack on the move. It takes only a pair of Orion raiders to reduce a lightly defended colony to rubble.

In addition to the marauding pirates, the Taubat Commonwealth occupy the anomaly. The Taubat appeared with the anomaly, and their origins are a mystery. Initially, each player campaign will have different dealings with the Taubat. In the preview build, the initial Federation scenario objectives have the Federation colonists responding to a Taubat distress call. The Klingons will start off the game by waging war on the Taubat in retaliation for a diplomatic betrayal. In the Romulan scenario, you'll find yourself either destroying or freeing a population of Taubat enslaved by Orion pirates, whichever option the colony commander deems logical. As the scenarios progress, the Taubat are revealed to be servants of a powerful and previously hidden race of creatures called the Metar.

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