tarfleet Academy is set in Star Trek's late Jurassic era, sometime around the fifth or sixth film, when legends such as Captains Kirk and Sulu were still alive. The game puts players in the role of David Forester, a cadet who is beginning Command school at the Academy. As Forester, players fly training missions in the Academy's bridge simulator. The missions test combat skills as well as diplomacy and general thinking-on-your-feet, putting players in command of a spectrum of Federation ships, from the Miranda Class Light Cruiser all the way to the hulking Excelsior Class.
All the traditional Trek technology tropes are faithfully reproduced. Forester can rebalance power between systems, call for emergency power and target specific components on enemy ships. He can use the sensors to scan ships and planets, open hailing frequencies and even consult with the ship's library.
Between missions Forester interacts with his bridge crew, helping them through their squabbles and insecurities. William Shatner, George Takei and Walter Koenig (as Chekov) make appearances as ad hoc Academy instructors. For players who want to skip the plotted story and get right into the action, the game also has an arena mode. There they can fly any of the game's 30 ships--including Romulan, Klingon and Gorn varieties--in battles of up to eight ships at a time. Multiple players can compete this way over a network, modem or direct connection.
Games shouldn't be confused with television
In order to create the sense of flying Trek's massive starships, yet still allow one person to manage them, this game has come up with some peculiar compromises. Flying is done with a joystick, as if the Enterprise were an F-16, and although there is a bridge crew, apparently they play hooky most days, because players must jump from station to station, personally executing every command. So in the heat of combat, players must manage Engineering, Damage Control and anything else that comes up. Thanks to ample hot keys this is possible, but it doesn't feel like being a captain.
The game's worst sin, though, is that success requires following a preplanned script of actions, in order and on time. Solving a mission doesn't really involve finding solutions, but trying to figure out what the script wants next. The missions take some unexpected twists that, when viewed afterward make a good story, but during play seem arbitrary because players don't have all the facts.
The situations and dilemmas players encounter, though, are creative and intriguing, with an authentic Trek feel. No patrol-five-waypoints-and-destroy-all-enemies here. The graphics are well done, especially the shield effects, and the sounds are dead on. There's nothing like the drone of a Romulan Warbird decloaking to strike terror into the heart of a cadet.
Purists may complain that Starfleet Academy isn't very true to Trek combat, but the game makes a good try at it, only faltering because it reached too far, which is a better than oversimplifying and falling short. It's not perfect, but it's still fun.
