Star Trek Generations is a 1997 first-person shooter with adventure and strategy elements by MicroProse, based on Star Trek Generations (1994), the seventh film in the Star Trek film franchise. It includes voice-acting by much of the cast of the film including actors Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, and Malcolm McDowell, as well as footage from the film.
Story
The plot of the game is similar to that of the film: Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D responds to a distress call from the Amargosa Observatory and Commander William Riker is sent over to investigate. Once there, he finds Dr. Tolian Soran, a scientist and madman hell bent on returning to the Nexus, a paradise dimension.
Soran escapes and the Enterprise goes on various missions to try to find him. To return to the Nexus, Soran intends on destroying stars in order to cause the Nexus (due to loss of the stars' gravity) to pass near Veridian III. The player needs to guess which planets Soran intends to destroy in order to pursue him.
Apart from being based on the film, the game is also related to Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity, since the aliens from that game, the Chodak, make an appearance. The overall science fiction universe of these titles is based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a television show that aired between 1987 and 1994, itself developed from the earlier Star Trek show of the late 1960s.
Gameplay
The game combines several video game genres, and follows the main non-linear philosophy of alternate paths to complete the game, followed in other Star Trek games.
The major portion of the game occurs in Stellar Cartography (also appearing in the film, although only for some minutes) where the player plans their next moves, the main opponents being time and Soran. This part of the game includes the strategic part where the player has to calculate and guess where Soran could be, in order to travel there and stop him before he destroys the system.
When a crew member beams to a planet or space station, the game switches to first-person action/adventure.
Star Trek Generations received mediocre reviews. Most critics said that while the away missions are interesting, particularly their puzzle elements, Most reviewers, however, concluded that the game was not strong enough to appeal to anyone but Trekkies.