Star Trek: Encounters is a video game set in the Star Trekfictional universe, which was released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. The game was developed by Scottish studio 4J Studios for Bethesda Softworks (U.S. and Australia) and Ubisoft (EU).
Gameplay[edit]
Encounters is an arcade style shoot 'em up game, and features ships and characters from all five Star Trek series: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.
Skirmish[edit]
In the Skirmish section of the game, single and multiplayer options are available, although objectives remain the same in both modes.
'Head-to-Head' mode gives the player the chance to choose a ship to control, including unlocked ships from enemy factions, and to choose an opponent ship to fight against. The player then sets the score limit, or the number of frags.
In 'Battlefest', the player chooses a pre-set group of three ships to fight another group of three ships. The player first starts with Ship 1, as does the enemy. When the first ship of either the player or the enemy is destroyed, the player or enemy respawns with Ship 2, then Ship 3 if Ship 2 is destroyed. The first to destroy all three of the opponent's ships wins.
'Onslaught' allows the player to only choose from the Starfleet ships currently unlocked in the game. Once a starship has been chosen, the player must continuously fight against an unending wave of ships. The goal is to destroy as many waves as possible. Waves become progressively more difficult to defeat, with more powerful ships in greater numbers with each new wave. In some intermittent waves, the player receives the message 'Destroy the Station!', in which the player must defeat the Romulan Nestar Station and its probes.
Story missions[edit]
The story portion of the game consists of six sections. Five are based on television series (Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager), whilst the sixth section is based on the Enterprise-E, which first appeared in Star Trek: First Contact.
There is no overall story connecting the different sections (unlike in, say, Star Trek: Legacy); instead, each section has a self-contained storyline.
The Enterprise missions involve defending Earth from the Xindi threat. The first mission is a tutorial, in which the player must fight some Xindi fighters. The second mission involves locating the Xindi planet-destroying super weapon and destroying it before it destroys Earth. The last mission involves destroying construction orbs that make the parts for the super weapon.
The Original Series missions take place between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The first mission involves the Enterprise escorting a Vulcan ambassador to peace talks with the Klingons. The next few missions see the player pursuing the Klingons. In the last mission, the Klingons are searching for fragments of the Genesis device (featured in Star Trek II) whilst the Genesis Planet explodes and the player must outrun the shockwave.
The Next Generation plot involves the Romulans. The mission starts with the discovery of a wormhole leading from Romulan Space into Federation space. After destroying the invading Romulans, the Enterprise-D enters the wormhole and destroys the Romulans on the other side, preventing them from re-entering. However, the Enterprise is then trapped inside of a giant 'living' weapon, but after reactivating the creature's immune system, the Enterprise escapes.
The Deep Space Nine missions are set during the Dominion War. The first of two missions take place in the Badlands as the Defiant sets out to find some missing ships. In the final mission, Jem'Hadar ships warp into the area around Bajor, and the Defiant and Deep Space 9 must destroy them.
The Voyager missions involve the Kazon and the Borg. The first mission sees Voyager attempting to recover four artifacts revealing details about the 'origin of life' in the universe. The second mission has Voyager facing the Borg as they attempt to assimilate planets in the Delta Quadrant. The third mission features Species 8472, and their fight against the Borg. The last mission sees Voyager escaping the Borg Queen.
The Enterprise-E missions start off with the Enterprise battling Orion Raiders, who have created a superweapon powered by antimatter. Aided by the Ferengi, the Enterprise prevents the Orion from firing. The last mission involves time travel and every ship from the game. After a battle, everything is put right, and the timeline is restored.
Reception[edit]
The game received 'mixed' reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[1] Common criticisms included the lack of an overall storyline, poor graphics and controls, events which did not fit into established Star Trek canon, and repetitive, poorly implemented gameplay.
Juan Castro of IGN felt that the game didn't feel like a Star Trek game, arguing that 'it feels much closer to playing a videogame about radio-controlled cars, only with a Star Trek skin. Sure, Encounters has phasers, sensors and photon torpedoes, and they even sound and look like their TV counterparts, but combat is less than riveting,' and 'Encounters suffers from a dire lack of Star Trek. There's very little point in using the Star Trek license without exploiting its greatest assets. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens here. Take away the name and there's little here that resembles the long-running franchise at all. And while playing through different eras of the Trek timeline is a great concept, and definitely has its appeal, the actual gameplay doesn't do it justice. It's a bargain title, but even gamers strapped for cash need to know Encounters is Star Trek only in name, not in function.'[7]
Greg Damiano of Game Revolution said that 'the game itself does nothing to draw you in. William Shatner delivers surprisingly muted, anonymous introductions to each episode before a series of anonymous text boxes explain your objectives. A little radio chatter would punctuate the action, but the game is deadly silent. Encounters throws a few hooks out there, like a planet-killer boss, but it doesn't follow through. If I saw that planet-killer kill a planet, I would be interested in stopping it..but it doesn’t, so meh! Who stays with a game that can't follow through like that?'[4]
Benjamin Turner of GameSpy stated that 'the controls are surprisingly awkward; this may be by design, but it's certainly not necessary. Tutorials will get you up to speed, but the game is still annoying to control in the heat of combat. Particularly irksome are the target lock-on and firing controls, which occupy R2 and R1. My right hand slowly turned into a twisted claw as I maintained a death grip on the lock-on button while trying to also nudge fire. Eventually I had to hold the controller in a whole new way just to alleviate the hand pain.'[6]
Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot was especially critical of the gameplay, stating that 'the gameplay is a mishmash of mediocre game design, simply stretching the combat as far as possible. In fact, cheap deaths and empty periods of absolutely nothing extend the missions longer than necessary. It's a short campaign, but it wears on seemingly forever since there just aren't a lot of fun activities to do. There's no exploration in the game, yet you'll be flying for extended stretches to get from point A to point B without anything new to see or eye candy to gawk at. Other attempts to break up the tedium are hit or miss. Objectives requiring you to beam crew members elsewhere or use a tractor beam to escort a damaged ship to safety are fine. Others, like following a rogue enemy's warp trail, are boring and frustrating. Losing the trail for more than a few seconds ends the mission, and the random minefields that just happen to be littering the path provide cheap deaths.' He concluded, 'No Trekkie wants to hate a game based on his or her favorite universe, but it's impossible to expect even the most stalwart devotee to like Star Trek: Encounters, even at its low price point. It fails at almost every conceivable level, both as a game and as a licensed product. If you've been waiting for a Star Trek game, spare yourself the frustration and keep waiting, since your imagination is bound to be more appealing than this budget-priced fiasco.'[5]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Trek:_Encounters&oldid=871240376'
Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity is an adventure game by Spectrum HoloByte, based on the Star Trek universe. It puts the player in control of Captain Picard and his crew of the Enterprise D and features traditional point-and-click adventure gameplay as well as free-form space exploration, diplomatic encounters and tactical ship-to-ship combat.
The cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation reprise their roles, providing the voices of their respective characters.
Plot[edit]
While on routine patrol of the Romulanneutral zone, the Enterprise intercepts a distress signal from the crew of a Garidian scout ship, seeking asylum in Federation space. After a brief confrontation with the commander of a Garidian Warbird (similar in design to a Romulan D'deridex Warbird except with a red starburst design on the nose), the crew of the scout ship is beamed aboard the Enterprise. One of the refugees mentions to Captain Picard that they are in search of the Lawgiver's legendary 'Fifth Scroll', which could aid in preventing war on Garid. Picard agrees to assist them, and the crew of the Enterprise sets out in search of clues to the location of the scroll.
After searching various star systems and completing several away missions, the crew of the Enterprise realizes that the scroll points to the existence of an enormous and powerful ancient structure, known as the Unity Device, that was created by the Chodak, an unknown alien race, during the peak of their civilization.
The storyline takes place around stardate 47111.1, according to the opening sequence of the game. This would place the events of the game between the first two episodes of the seventh season of the series, 'Descent' and 'Liaisons'. The non-canonical Chodak race reappear in the Star Trek video games Star Trek Generations and Birth of the Federation.
Gameplay[edit]
Main Bridge
Gameplay is mostly linear in nature, sometimes branching partially depending on choices made during various conversations.
Enterprise[edit]
Tactical
On board the Enterprise, gameplay basically amounts to waiting until the ship arrives at its next destination, and occasionally conversing with various crewmembers for advice. There are various areas of the main bridge that can be interacted with to control the ship and consult with various people.
The turbolift allows for access to other areas of the ship.
Away missions[edit]
The majority of the gameplay takes place by controlling an away team on various space stations and alien worlds, which is the pure adventure game part of the game. The away team is selected by the player and is then controlled in a point-and-click manner by selecting the desired command from the interface in the lower area of the screen. Items in the inventory can be used to interact with the environment in much the same way.
As in most adventure games, inventory items are used to solve various puzzles. The comments and responses of the characters vary depending on the combination the player chooses.
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Upon completion of the away mission, the team is beamed up, and the Enterprise awaits further orders or acts with the new information provided by the away mission.
Background[edit]
A Final Unity was originally penned for a release shortly after Interplay's Star Trek: 25th Anniversary.[citation needed] Since 25th Anniversary was released at the end of 1992, A Final Unity was scheduled to be released in 1993,[citation needed] but did not make the projected release date.
Seven principal actors of the TV show (Wil Wheaton is missing) plus Majel Barrett, the voice of the computer, were hired to reprise their roles in voice-overs for the game.[1]A Final Unity was Spectrum HoloByte's second Star Trek video game, following the 1994 game Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future's Past.[1] Spectrum Holobyte acquired MicroProse shortly thereafter, and continued developing Star Trek games under the MicroProse name. A version for the Atari Jaguar CD was reportedly in development by MicroProse but it never released.[2][3][4]
A Final Unity officially required a floating pointcoprocessor (FPU), which was unusual for DOS games at the time.[citation needed] It could still be played on a computer not equipped with one, but at reduced performance.[citation needed]
Reception[edit]
A Final Unity was a commercial success, selling 500,000 copies by 1996.[12] Iphone 6s manual and user guide.
Upon release, A Final Unity was met with generally positive reviews. Andy Butcher from PC Gamer UK noted that the game 'translates the atmosphere and 'feel' of The Next Generation almost perfectly' and praised the way it is structured as well as its visual presentation and sound design.[8]Computer Gaming World's Allen L. Greenberg criticized the game's tactical battles as 'often tedious and inconclusive', but found the away missions 'extremely enjoyable' and the game's overall presentation 'impressive'.[5]
Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that 'If you're a fan of 'ST:TNG,' you definitely don't want to miss A Final Unity. It's just the fix you need to hold you until the next movie or novel. But if you're simply looking for a good graphic adventure, you can find better.'[6]
A Final Unity was a runner-up for Computer Gaming World's 1995 'Adventure Game of the Year' award, which ultimately went to I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. The editors wrote of A Final Unity, 'Despite inconsistent graphics and disappointing tactical combat, near-impeccable voiceovers from the stellar television cast made the game very compelling. Moreover, the game's script was at least as well written as many of the series' final episodes.'[13]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_–_A_Final_Unity&oldid=902305216'
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