Title: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Released: 1994 Genre: 3-D Shooter/Simulator Developer: Interplay Publisher: Interplay  Regions: USA Availability: Rare

Video games based on the Star Trek license are generally poor, the PSX’s Star Trek: Invasion and a couple of first-person shooters for the PC notwithstanding. This is a perplexing situation, as the Star Trek universe would seem to be a fine foundation upon which to formulate great video games. Alas, we get mediocre “simulations” like this. Star Trek Starfleet Academy: Starship Bridge Simulator is based on the “classic” Star Trek story lines (as in Kirk, Spock, Bones, etc.) You play the role of a Starfleet cadet in his (or her) first year at the Academy. You must attend classes, engage in spacecraft simulations, and interact with your classmates and instructors, all of whom have an extremely limited (and occasionally rude) vocabulary. Your performance is graded based on how well you perform in the numerous space simulations. Most of this game is just plain boring, except for the parts where you get to destroy enemy ships (of course.) You can command most of the better-known Federation ships, including the Federation Excelsior, as well as enemy craft such as the Klingon Bid of Prey, Tholian attack ship, and even the massive Romulan Phoenix. The graphics are mostly bland, looking very 16-bit in quality. The battle simulations feature polygonal ship models, but well over 50% of your screen is obscured by your view of the bridge, a flat 2-D backdrop populated by barely animated crew members. The sound effects are classic Trek, but the music is maddening, looping over and over again. It's actually quite shocking how dreadful the soundtrack turned out, especially when compared to the glorious musical score from the Star Wars Arcade cart. This game is only suitable for really hard-core Trek fans, and even they will be disappointed. Try Shadow Squadron or DarXide instead.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy debuted on the Super Nintendo, powered by the Super FX chip. The 32x version is very similar, if just a bit faster and prettier. It looks as if this game was originally planned for the Genesis, but was ported to the 32x to take advantage of its increased power. An “enhanced” version of this game appeared years later for the PC, with better graphics and extremely similar gameplay. Yawn.