Product Description

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is the first and only Star Trek flight simulation game that enables players to captain the original USS Enterprise while interacting with actors from Paramount Television's Star Trek.

The setting is Starfleet headquarters in the Presidio, San Francisco, CA, where hopeful cadets are trained to become Starfleet officers; the goal is to navigate successfully through over 20 missions and graduate as a Starfleet officer.

Academy life isn't easy--it's filled with subplots, internal politics and decisions that will impact not only the player but his cadet class and Starfleet itself. Among the cadet's teachers are Captain Kirk, Chekov and Sulu, who will help guide and teach the player what it takes and means to be a Starfleet officer.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy allows players to command 4 classic Federation Starships (including the USS Enterprise) in combat against 30 3D real-time rendered spaceships from a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey to a Romulan Heavy Cruiser. The game combines an adaptive artificial intelligence, cutting edge 3D graphics and real-time flight simulation/action play to create a truly galactic Star Trek experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4976 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Avalon Interactive
• Released on: 2001-06-29
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 95

Customer Reviews

Woo hoo
Every fancied being a Starfleet captain? Ever dreamed of flying to the final frontier? Well, this is about as close as you can get at the moment. As a budding Starfleet Captain at Starfleet Academy, you will command a series of different classed vessels through a campaign of simulated training missions, including the infamous Kobyashi Maru scenario. Although it lacks on the actual 'command' aspects of being a captain; you seem to control everything but actually effecting ship repairs yourself. You give no orders, you have to pilot the ship completely on your own, you have to fire weapons yourself, and so on. The ships may not handle like the truely huge starships they are, but they do make for some good dogfighting. Along the way you will have to deal with some social problems with your fellow bridge crew, such as diplomatically encouraging them to do better, or solving internal disputes. When you've finished the campaign, you can amuse yourself for a little longer with the 'Create mission' function. You can be any ship featured in the game, including the cloaking Klingon vessels, and have a big fight with up to 8 ships. Watch out for the mysterious bug in this aspect that can sometimes blow your ship up for no apparent reason. The multiplayer action is a little more interesting, a personal favourite of mine being Net Profit, where you are a freighter captain trying to earn enough dylithium (the currency used) to retire; the limit set at the beginning. You can spend you're hard earned cash on ship upgrades, and transfer your freighter into a super powered battle cruiser. You can even buy tribbles if you want. Also featured is the standard set of 'deathmatch' and team deathmatch type fights to the death. Graphically, considering it's age now, it is quite good. Although it doesn't compare to some ofthe newer space sims around nowadays, it isn't too bad. Also, thanks to this, it isn't too demanding, so lower spec machines shouldn't have too many problems running it. There are some pretty good details on the ships, and the interior view, such as ship names and registries being printed, the Klingon insignia on Klingon ships, and the slightly damagable aspects. This only includes the warp nacelles, however, which can be ripped off if damaged sufficiently. If you're a budding Star Trek fan, and are looking for a cheap space shoot-em-up, look no further. However, due to its lack of certain features, such as more realistic ship handling, some way of giving direct orders to the crew, this is not as good a simulation game as it could have been, and is not for the non-Trek people out there.

Good attempt
This gives Star Trek fans an insight into the often talked about but rarely seen Starfleet Academy.
The player takes on the role of Cadet David Forrester, who is the 'Captain' in the simulator, which is where all the missions take place (although this makes no real difference).
As with most of the Trek games, instead of giving orders like the real Captains, you do it yourself using the keyboard.
The game takes place with a series of missions before which you are briefed by and Admiral with a certain James T.Kirk appearing to give you orders. During the mission you command Constitution (Enteprise-A),Excelsior and Oberth (science) class vessels. The differing specs mean you have to approach each mission differently. This means that as oberth class ships are weak and not designed for combat, you have to avoid fighting if possibly and Excelsior class ships are the most powerful but slow and bulky. In between missions you are treated to FMV's where you watch a piece of footage and then make a decision based on 3 given options, which affect your command rating and how the characters react to you. Klingons, romulans and various other species make appearances during the game, at the end of which you gratuate from the Academy and become a helmsman.
This is a good game with a little bit of everything (action, mystery, diplomacy) which I recommend to all Star Trek fans.

RATING: 4 STARS ****