I think I know what Star Trek fans like enough to judge what "gamer" Star Trek fans would enjoy. The games that have come out recently with the Star Trek label have not been stellar hits. I've heard good and bad but mostly mediocrity rules among Star Trek games. I believe that Star Trek: Bridge Commander has truly tried to break that tradition by giving us, the players, what we really want which is a star ship command simulator. Those of you that are Next Generation fans and always wanted to command a vessel should enjoy this release.

Crew Interaction The perspective is the Captains eyes (though every time I look straight down I can't see my lap or feet). The mouse is used to direct the Captains first person point of view. Simply click on a bridge crew member to issue orders. "Simply click" is somewhat a stretch in terms. The interface is lacking an actual pointer until a bridge officer is chosen. This can be confusing but once the click spots are found or the F# key short cuts are learned, it become less of a burden. There is interaction with 5 crew stations and a 6th station for visitors to the ship.

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Tactical Lt. Felix Savali blows stuff up for his beloved Captain and has a shiny personality that matches that scowl on his forehead. (Get to know him because you will interact with him a lot.) This is where the fun stuff happens. Tactical keeps track of a target list, (Friends, Foes, etc.) fires your Phasers and Torpedoes and also monitors your shields. Tactical even takes over helm control during battle. There are several basic battle maneuvers that you can command Lt. Savali to initiate or let him target and fire at will.

The player can also take manual control of the weapons and Helm through this station. Manual Helm control requires third person ship point of view. Tactical is located right front of the bridge. In the T.V. series Tasha Yar or Worf hovered above the First Officer and Captain's chairs but in the game it makes sense to have tactical down front. That way the captain is facing the main view screen when dealing with the Tactical Officer. It allows for clear view of the action on screen.

First Officer a.k.a. Executive Officer Commander Saffie Larsen a.k.a. Useless. She is the Captain's mouth piece for communications (since you, the Captain never speaks) and she is annoying. Her station gives the order for Red, Yellow and Green Alert. She also contacts Star Fleet, and keeps the mission objectives for future reference. Mostly she is there to deal with face to face main screen communications, on the Captain's behalf and push the player along if the ship sits in empty, unimportant space too long.

At least Commander Riker could pick up some chicks and keep children off the bridge (sometimes). Ms. Larsen serves little purpose. She usually just sits in that right hand chair and critiques the Captain's every move.

	Science Officer Lt. Commander Miguel Diaz is no Spock Actually he is kind of whiney. They put him off to the side and behind the Captain's chair where Tactical is in the Next Generation series. He isn't used that much so turning around to deal with him isn't a big deal. He scans targeted ships, junk floating in space and the general area. He is necessary but not used all that much.

Engineering Chief Engineer Brex is behind the Captain's chair to the left and is the quirky little blue Engineer. He sounds fairly young for being head of engineering. This station gives access to power management over four key systems. Weapons, Engines, Sensors and Shields. The more power given to each the better and faster they perform. The power distribution interface consists of sliders that can be adjusted up to 125% for each system, which seems silly since percentage points only come in 100 packs but the concept is sound.

Basically, by requesting more than 100% power for systems but not reducing power channeled to other systems, power reserves are drained more quickly. Under good circumstances you can have everything at 100% with no power reserves drain. The systems can run for extended periods with power consumption boosted so don't be afraid to juice up the weapons, shields and engines during battle. This is also where damage control is managed.

In the single player game the ships, under the Captain's command, have three damage repair teams. (3 systems can be under repair simultaneously) Systems that are damaged function more slowly and if extremely damaged will not function at all until repaired up to a certain point. Items on the "destroyed" list don't come back until you dock with the Star Base. Resource management in battle is important so watch this station closely. Many of the tactical items are available to view from this station. It's a good station to man if you take manual control over flying and fighting. (note: you can't combine repair teams on one task and boy do I wish I could) Left: Shield Generator is under repair but is not functioning. Several systems are waiting in line. All but 2 are not functioning. Aft Tractor Beam is destroyed.

Second Officer Occasionally a visitor sits to the left of the Captain to give advice. Captain Picard visits early to train the newly appointed Captain (you) in the first mission and he is voice acted by Patrick Steward. (This article will not reveal any other guests. You will just have to buy the game to find out.) It is possible to occasionally consult with this person during key portions of a missions. (Personally I would rather have Counselor Troy sitting there with me . . . . . . because her telepathy abilities would come in so handy.)

Graphics Details a.k.a. How Do the Ships Look? Graphically the people in this game look average (and their faces down right scare me, see Picard above). In-game mouth animation is usually just a looped, local to the mouth area, animation which doesn't sync with the words very well. If they had animated the mouths to say "watermelon, watermelon" over and over again they would have had better results. Some ship models are just adequate. Some look excellent.

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I would say that the Klingon Bird of Prey and the Romulan War Bird look the best. The Galaxy Class (like the Enterprise from the Next Generation series) is next in line for best looking. There are a couple of ships that aren't so good. The torpedo "special effects" are simply designed but are convincing. Beam weapons are animated nicely with an ambient glow on the target ship when the hull is hit by the beam.

Before weapons break through the shields there is a faint glow of energy activity which is the shields "deflecting" or absorbing the shot. The shield effects are, again, simple but they add much to the game. The best feature graphically is when the ships take extreme damage. There is nothing like seeing stars through a giant hole in the saucer section as a result of a torpedo hit, after the shields have been weakened. The bridge smokes and sparks when the ship in the midst of battle. The crew reacts to it but it doesn't seem to affect their performance.

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Sound in Space?
Weapons sound effects and music score are high quality. There is a beam weapon on the larger Klingon ship, Vorcha Class, that sounds just like the old Phaser sound effect from the old series (click here to listen to WAV file of Klingon Phaser from game. Every time I hear it it reminds me of old Star Trek.) All sounds are convincing and almost all sampled or patterned after one Star Trek T.V. series or another. The sound in this game is definitely a big highlight.

Battle
My main problem with Star Trek games, dating back to the pencil and paper role playing games, have always been how shields are handled. Damage seems to get through them too easily. I truly feel that this game handles shields well. If a ship takes a high powered torpedo weapon while the shields are fresh you may still take a little hull damage but the shield is usually just slightly drained. If the shield is half drained some damage comes through. The rest of the damage drains the shield further. Drained shields take a long time to recharge but not so long that a downed shield will never come back to a useful strength during a short game. This is how it should be. However the math was worked out , it seems very accurate. The shield strength per ship type seems correct as well.

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The "Chase" point of view allows for a targeted ship to be kept centered on the view screen at all times, even though the ship may be off the starboard side (right side for you land lubbers). This allows a good visualization on how best to maneuver the ship to aim at your targets. Chase View keeps the game away from a space fighter pilot feel which is appropriate.

(These behemoth ships have eyes/sensor everywhere. Why would you have to turn the ship to get the enemy in your sites when you can fire at them from out of the corner of your eye?) To compensate for the lack of maneuver ability, most bigger lumbering ships have many arcs of fire so that attacks can be made, while not facing the enemy.  There is no joystick controls which seems correct in the Star Trek universe. Generally the movie and T.V. series ships are controlled from a keypad type interface (except for when Riker took manual control of the Sovereign Class Enterprise in Star Trek: Insurrection. A stupid joystick popped up for him to pilot the ship. I think I actually "booed' in the theater). Mouse is used for manual aiming, mouse buttons are used for firing all 3 weapons types and scroll wheel is used for setting ship flight speed. (I have to say a personal highlight for me is the fact that you can ram into other ships. Friendly or Enemy. It can cause massive amounts of hull damage to each ship involved with the danger of destroying key systems in the process. It' not a bad idea for last resort tactics.)

Multiplayer and Quick Battle
Quick Battle allows the player to set up computer controlled ships to spar with. The player can assign allies to him or herself and to the opposing computer "bot only" team. Since large numbers of ships can be added you can create epic fleet battles in different space maps. Maps range from empty space to asteroid fields to sensor and shield hurting nebulas. (In case you are curious 26 shuttle craft can easily destroy 1 Romulan War Bird.) Be careful how many ships are added. Certain computers may have a hard time rendering all those ships at once.
There are multiplayer modes that can have up to 8 player on a LAN or online blasting away in team death match and "everyone is out for themselves" death match games. There are also defend the base and a few other games type. For more Bridge Commander multiplayer related coverage, stay tuned to the HappyGamers web site for the announcement of the "Multiplayer Review" for Bridge Commander. HappyGamers will discuss Multiplayer game types and the different tactical abilities for each ship type. Sign up for the HappyGamers email newsletter (top of home page) to be notified of the next article release or check back with our web site news on the home page.

All in all this game is good fun. If you are a Star Trek fan and like behemoth size war ship simulators this game is for you. The single player plot has a lot of ship on ship fighting and other tactical maneuvers steeping the plot in action. If you are picky about every detail and aspect of a game you will feel that game may have spread itself a little thin trying to manage the branding, multiplayer and involved single player missions. Quick Battle, fleet on fleet simulations and multiplayer, encourage replay and are good additions to the game. There have been a couple of glitches in graphics related to ship skin mapping and pull down menu titles disappearing. The 1.1 updated listed in our news may help with those problem. (The only improvements I ask is add the ability for 16 in multiplayer instead of 8 and give us more ships types to download for multiplayer. There are some lag problems which is probably why they kept it at 8 so I say fix that and bump it to 16. Then you have a big league multiplayer game.)