Crapshoot: Star Trek: Voyager made better videogames than television

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the cube to bring random cloud games back into the insignificant. As his trek across Trek concludes, information technology's clock to go out with a bang and a whimper with one last tour of duty aboard the doomed USS Voyager. OR, just maybe, two...

Voyager. Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

The but thing worse than a bad show is a potentially great one that seems intent on alimentation itself to the dogs. Voyager should have been brilliant. A brand new crew. New writers. A nice discontinue for everyone to refresh themselves after so galore years of Next Gen. A brand inexperient part of the universe; undeveloped, uncharted, where anything could happen and nobody had whatsoever respect for this supposed "Federation".

Unfortunately, what ended up happening was Voyager—seven seasons of idiocy that looked pop on its fans, threw away almost every keen idea it had, and hardened all situation every bit an excuse for the writers to show off their deary Captain—the incompetent, insincere repulsion that was Kathryn Janeway.

This is non a 'female chieftain' complaint, you understand. Not even conclusion. It's a complaint about a show whose scripts were completely blind to their lead's potentially interesting faults, when even the actress WHO played her admitted to having assumed she was bipolar. On the button the same problem would hit her successor, Enterprise's Archer—a man with slightly less diplomatical science than his have pet dog, but who the scripts would go out of their way to kudos for at least the first two years of the show's run.

Voyager's problems were on both sides of the cover. Under its watch, the Borg were shrunken from universe-conquering threat to shank fodder, patc the at one time-omnipotent Q went from the judge and eventual ally of human beings to a lovesick schoolboy in a bad sitcom. Individually good ideas like the fantastic Doc were few and far between, and ordinarily wasted when they came risen. Seven of Nine for example was a great idea for a character, but the general contempt for the audience equally a bunch of virtuous nerds made it tough to ensure past the ridiculous silver medal catsuit to the actual character inside. And not in a Photoshop way. Plot-wise, plane good episodes like Equinox and Year of Hell stood as a bitter reminder of what the show could have been if information technology had sucked fitting a bit bit less.

(IT's significant that several of the production team up hated the show too, with Ronald Moore at last making Battlestar Galactica largely based on what He wished it had been, and Robert Beltran—First Officer Chakotay—quite a blithely bashing it while it was still along the air. Jolene Blacock would do something similar patc acting T'Pol on the equally awful Enterprisingness, though from a unusual Angle—as a huge Trek fan herself, she objected to how bad the series was. No argument there.)

What Voyager had happening its side was that it was perfect for games. Often like the demo, uncharted territory meant accomplished creative freedom, with the safety of the embark a much stronger focusing for the action than much ergodic diplomatic blah with the blue people of Planet Whatever like preceding games had relied on. The only problem was a pragmatic one—everything Voyager touched turned to poop.

When Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Coerce appeared with the tagline "Set Phasers To Frag", that seemed to be proceeding right on cue. A good deal to everyone's surprise though... IT was a damn good game.

Unlike the show's creators, Raven approached making a Star Trek shooter by hard to public figure out how to best implement the FPS mechanics they were used to working with into a new circumstance... instead of slamming their heads in a desk for 5 hours and emerging with a smile and cry of "We'll call him Neelix! He'll glucinium hilarious!" And believe ME, this is the nicest vision I have of how things worked...

Raven's creation was the Hazard Team (which was obviously meant to glucinium the name of the game ahead someone decided Elite Force plumbed cooler), an answer to the standard Star Trek problem of having the bridge circuit bunch constantly putt themselves in danger. Think of them American Samoa what happens when a redshirt gets proper equipment and combat training, instead of a gutshot and cheap funeral.

(The Hazard Team concept was so obviously a good idea, information technology was even suggested that information technology might pull through to the show itself, though that never happened, because Voyager chewed up good ideas and shat them out arsenic scripts like Threshold. A version would appear in Enterprise though, dubbed MACOs. Which are a bit chip suchlike TACOs, take out without the late-Night turgidness and wadding a slightly better quality of beef.)

The mettlesome itself was echt. You could have either a male or egg-producing character, effort was put into the recreation of Voyager, all the cast except Jeri Ryan showed up for voices (though she was later added in an expansion) and even up the tutorial dismantle kicked things off with a sleep with by having you fight through a Borg cube. Like the show, you only got a number of shots before they modified to phasers, ahead in the end you upgraded to a new artillery called the I-Fashionable that only cycled frequencies to hold out killing. Unlike a great deal of Voyager's neutering campaign, this actually made idyllic sense—an invention by Cardinal, a former Borg with in-depth cognition of their weaknesses, and logically sound Eastern Samoa a piece of tech.

Briefly, IT was a big success, and the sequel was decent too. Though suchlike all good things, it fled Voyager like rats from a stinking ship and settled the action to the Endeavour instead. A hardly a unfortunate decisions like removing the female character options aside, it was much the same game. IT's not as well-remembered though, mostly callable to non genuinely evolving shooters in any way, and coming happening the festering heels of a certain cinematic abomination called Star Trek: Scourge.

Nonetheless. Elite Force is a familiar, fondly remembered pun.

...

But there was another. Oh, yes.

Champion Trek: Borg might non look like a Voyager game—but in fact, IT's the most Voyager game of them all. It was mostly filmed along its sets, back in the interactive movie craze of the 1990s. At first glance, IT's look-alike galore of its ilk. Simple controls. Prototypical-person. Logic puzzles to lick. Hilariously dodgy FMV. Very immature to do. Only it has one thing on its side that none of the others could true dream of. It has Q.

Unlike the dire Star Trek: The Game Establish, this is the Q people dearest to hate—capricious, powerful, and with John de Lancie having an inviolable blast. The Borg may get pass billing, but make no mistake, he's the star. Amend still, where other games would simply pay him to deliver front of a tv camera for a few proceedings and say "Hello, I'm someone you've seen on Boob tube", he's absolutely everywhere here.

The basic story is that you're the unfortunately called Cadet Qaylan Furlong, whose father was killed aside the Borg at the disastrous battle at Wolf 359. Years later, your personal ship is attacked, and all the cadets are rushed off to safety. Q so literally appears out of nowhere and offers you a deal1he'll use his powers to send you back off yet to preserve your Father-God, and all you have to do is keep him... entertained.

Soh obviously you enunciat 'no' and the credits roll. District attorney DA DAA DAA DAA DAAA...

Taking the unusual way of life though, you find yourself in a really cute mutual movie. Most of the puzzles are slanted and lead to your instant death, just that's Satisfactory. Q forever brings you back to life to have another shot. The smart thing is that sometimes dying is actually required to progress the narration. At one point for instance you're sneaking around a Borg embark, and actually have to provoke them into fight, constitute captured, and be turned into a Borg so that you can see what's on their computers. Brought back to animation, you put up past use this to prevent things going wrong in the first place.

All deferred payment to them, that's a actually cagy concept. And there's whatever other interesting lateral thinking happening offer. Probably the best bit is a scene where you have to persuade a crewmate to let you manage something, only for him to hint you play the doddery 'which hand am I holding the thing' halt. Information technology doesn't matter which one you pick, you're always wrong. The factual solution? Poke him out and get to work. Awful.

The real fun though comes from Q himself. In Quantum Leap style, you're non plainly in that location as yourself, but in the body of the ship's security officer. Yes, just like that. Not wanting to be left out, Q also steps in to act the ship's doctor, and has some excellent scenes with the bunch. Probably the best is when someone finally calls him knocked out happening how for all his king and arrogance, there's a part of him that urgently wants to comprise liked. Why hindquarters't he just snap his fingers and make everyone corresponding him? He could. But He knows full well it wouldn't mean anything if he did. It's the kind of humanising moment that Voyager failed miserably at, but which actually whole kit and caboodle here—brick level subtlety and all.

No, I stand firm disciplined. The best is when Qaylan finally tires of Q's shit and does what only Sisko has ever dared do before—punches him in the chee. Oh. And then kicks him in the balls.

At that place's a lot you can criticise or so Star Trek: Borg. It's incredibly short, there's not a lot of pathing to it beyond 'touch on the wrong thing and kick the bucket' and the acting and story are nothing to write home about. Concurrently though, information technology's really entertaining. Q in particular is majuscule company, largely channelling his appearance in the Side by side Gen episode Tapestry as a cut-up who nevertheless has a nitty-gritt and is rooting for the people who fall into his crosshairs. For all his criticisms and talks of being bored, he regularly pulls some the main character and the crew impossible of the fire - and International Relations and Security Network't afraid to manipulation his power to help out. He May not make the Borg just vanish, but that wouldn't be any entertaining - and it wouldn't teach anyone anything either. Still, when the chips are down, his comment "It's not too late if I say it's not too later," make it very clear where his sympathies consist, and how he's decided this is going to end.

Good game? Nah. But a good mutual movie? As much as that's possible, I quite like it.

Unluckily it's next to impossible to find these years, true if IT still runs. YouTube to the rescue! This is an emended interpretation of the full movie, including the death sequences (which as mentioned are often required to get world-shaking bits of information) and vast, vast amounts of Q's snark.

Why? Because he potty.

And with that, Star Trek calendar month is formally over. Technically, the Enterprise of the abortive television atrocity of the same distinguish did lay in an appearance in the dismal Star Trek Bequest, and there are other games we've not looked at, including the decent Birth of the Federation. But I think that bequeath do. Next week, it's noncurrent to our regularly regular weirdness. Live long, and continue reading.

And, y'know. Other stuff like that.