I’ve talked plenty about the influence of Star Wars, on games bearing that name and otherwise, and indeed the influence of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sci-fi influences go further back than that, though. There’s a reason why Elite II was called Frontier and that instantly got across the idea of space (the final…). Star Trek have been there all along even if not as blatant in anything I’ve covered so far. And in the mid-‘90s, unlike Star Wars, Star Trek was currently active in its original medium, which gave it some different opportunities when it came to games.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity is not, in the manner of Star Wars games so far, a game set in the ST:TNG universe, with the player cast as a newcomer maybe interacting distantly with some of the cast. A Final Unity is a game in which you play as the very crew of the Enterprise as they make their way through an episode or three. The cast, including your actual Patrick Stewart, are all there, not in the filmed FMV sense but in offering voiceovers to some reasonable pixel art approximations of their appearances. This is a strong decision, offering an increased flexibility while sacrificing little if anything in terms of immersion, and the voiceovers are easy to appreciate even as someone who has watched little of the series.
ST:TNG:AFU doesn’t give you long to take in the setting before throwing you into its story, with events and decisions coming at you incredibly fast. Before you know it you’ve had a negotiation over some asylum seekers and encountered an unstable power facility that needs intervention. As Picard you manage all of this via conversations with crew members and the occasional outside video call, and through taking decision after decision. Or delegating, which is even better — you can choose to leave Worf to run the combat because that’s not your job.
There are no dramatic cutscenes, but the sense of being in charge and at the centre of a whole group of people relying on you is a powerful one through not much more than effectively written text. I’ve done some project management, though never of a spaceship, and it the game really gets at the relationships that make up its most exciting moments. Plus Picard gets to say “make it so” a lot.
That’s one of two main strands of the game, the other being point’n’click adventure sections where you control the team beamed down to the situation of the moment. These don’t have anything revolutionary to offer the genre but again turn it to the game’s purpose well. There’s not so much walking around collecting stuff, and more using the expertise and Star Trek items — phaser, tricorder — already in your possession. All of your crew get to be who they’re meant to be, in more than just the cast voiceovers sense.
The overall plot of the game and the quest for a ‘fifth scroll’ is one point at which it does get a bit unnecessarily obviously video-gamey. Otherwise, A Final Unity is an example of how to boldly create a game which works both as a game and in service to the atmosphere of its subject material. A fine unity.
