Star Trek Bridge Commander

"The game every Trekkie was waiting for"

I don't know about everyone else, but when it comes to scifi series like Star Trek, Star Wars, or almost any other, the type of game I want most is a sim of those particular series' spacecraft, whether it was a fighter like the X-Wing from SW, or in Star Trek's case, a full fledged battleship like the Galaxy class. Starfleet Academy was a poor attempt because while it made an attempt at a starship simulation, those supposedly bulky and large spacecraft handled like manueverable fighter craft. Bridge Commander fixes that, and by making this game a duel between hulking battlecraft, innovates and creates new battle strategies that wouldn't be utilized by games simming smaller ships.

With a quality company like Totally games creating Bridge Commander, this game was much more likely not to fall into the deluge of just another crappy Star Trek product. The game does a remarkable job simming a starship in combat, allowing players to issue specific commands to people on the bridge, target specific enemy ship components, reroute power from various ship subsections to one another, and more. The strategies here are quite different from a typical space flight sim. Because you are a big starship, you won't be flying circles around anyone, unless you're piloting a Bird of Prey. Most of the time, you'll be rotating your ship to not overexpose any shield segments as well as utilizing the multiple phaser arrays of a Federation ship. Weapons aren't front loaded unless you play the other races in multiplayer, so you can't afford to keep the ship's fore pointed at your opponents at all times.

Storyline wise, the game is solid, similar to what you'd see in a typical Star Trek episode. However, I do get tired of lots of Star Trek games like this one that always create a new race just to stick in as a villain for one specific game, never to be heard of again in future games or series.

As for music, well, it ain't this game's strong point. Neither is the voice acting. I enjoy Patrick Stewart's work but like most Star Trek games, he is sleepwalking through his lines. Brent Spiner is better, though, as Data.

Because of the excellent mod community, this game has a lot of replay value, especially with the addition of multiplayer. You can find mods for almost all of your favorite Star Trek ships not in the game, from the Voyager to the Defiant, at places like http://www.bcfiles.com. There is a lot of fun to be had creating your dream matchups using these mods.

In the end, this is a game any Trekkie should own. For everyone else, the idea of large, dueling battleships isn't for everyone, but the game does a good job with its original intent, which was to recreate the starship battles in Star Trek. Overall, a very good game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/03, Updated 03/13/03