Make It So: The 10 Best Star Trek Games in the Quadrant
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation – Birth of the Federation (1999)
An absolutely epic 4X turn-based strategy game, Birth of the Federation gave players control of one of the Alpha Quadrant’s major races and tasked them with managing a vast empire, including diplomacy, exploration, resource management, and combat. Featuring turn-based 3D combat sequences and huge 2D star maps, this was the Master of Orion II-like game that Star Trek fans had been waiting for.
The game was far from perfect, unfortunately, with questionable AI and a nagging bug that caused the game engine to become increasingly slower the longer a game lasted. The lack of The Original Series ships during the early phases of the game (due to the fact that developer MicroProse only held the license to The Next Generation) was also disappointing. But, at its core, Birth of the Federation was an absolute blast to play, with a cool LCARS interface, authentic music, and mechanics that finally gave Star Trek fans craving a deep and fulfilling strategy game something to get excited about.
30 thoughts on “Make It So: The 10 Best Star Trek Games in the Quadrant”
I’m glad to learn that there are some decent Star Trek games. I had always heard that they are all hot garbage.
This is an old article, but as a list of the best (historical) Star Trek games, it’s incomplete without MTrek, probably the first online multiplayer Star Trek game ever. So addictive, it’s still being played today.
take it seriously as Legacy is one of the best Star Trek games ever created.
Star Trek: Legacy got 8.0 out of 10 when it was reviewed
2006 in the Official XBOX magazine (also in a retrospective review done last
year by the Official XBOX Magazine they called the game “almost
great)” .
Here is why Legacy in my opinion is the best Star Trek game ever:
* All 5 Trek Captains reprise their roles by lending their voice talent to the game
* The game covers all 5 Trek TV series and all 3 Trek eras
* D.C. Fontana wrote the story (this is huge as she is a well respected Trek
writer with credits dating back to TOS. Most games don’t have professional
writers and stories are often paper thin if not abysmal)
* It Features all of the well know ships in the Trek universe (Federation,
Klingon, Romulan and Borg)
*Lets the play be able to play as any of the 4 factions in deathmatches
(Federation, Klingon, Romulan or Borg)
* Also the developer (Mad Doc Software) at the request of fans of the game
released the developer tools to allow the mods to game (that means: new ships
or tweaks to the existing ships and new missions). This is huge as this is
almost unheard of for this to be done and gives the game a lot of extra value
beyond just the stock version on the game that is on the XBOX 360.
I am not going to be dishonest about it and will admit Legacy that ad a few
issues but nothing them were game breaking. The issues the game faced (a few
bugs and unimplemented developer stated features) were a result of the
publisher (Bethesda Softworks) forcing the developer (Mad Doc Software) to push
the game to market before it was polished & completed. This sadly is all
too common the video game industry and often is due the publisher wanting to
meet a certain target date or deciding not to invest further funding in the
development of the game. What often happens in these instances are for the game
in question to be cancelled or the developer to threaten to cut funding. In the
case of Star Trek: Legacy the it was the latter and the developer decided to
take a game what was essentially in the beta stage of development and release
it rather than have the entire game canned. I personally am glad they made the
decision to publish that game regardless of it not being the completely
finished game that the developer had envisioned because the game truly is still
a remarkable game that is fun and holds up well despite a few flaws.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Game_Show