Description:
If you're a Trekkie starved for old-school classic Star Trek, you might want to take flight with Interplay's Starfleet Academy, a space combat simulator featuring starships and personalities from the original series. Assuming the role of a Starfleet commander, you oversee a group of increasingly unruly cadets in a galaxy unraveling from tensions among the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan empires. Thankfully, some legendary officers are present to assist. William Shatner, Walter Koenig, and George Takei reprise their roles as Captain Kirk, Commander Chekov, and Captain Sulu, respectively. Starfleet Academy splits time between 3-D starship battle action and 220 minutes of full-motion video sequences--particularly crisp in the Starfleet Academy DVD-ROM version--to drive the often-engaging storyline. During combat situations, you must tediously maintain ship systems such as energy allocation while using the limited controls to battle a graphically unimpressive series of hostile starships. The mix of starship simulation and battle action never does come together. If you're hoping to watch William Shatner squeeze into the Starfleet uniform one more time, you might enjoy Starfleet Academy as more of a movie experience than a game. However, if you're gunning for intense space combat action, look elsewhere. --Doug Radcliffe
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