By Jim Rossignol on August 18th, 2011 at 10:12 am.
Via Blue I spy two new trailers for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine-inspired free-to-play MMO, Star Trek: Infinite Space. They’re both game footage pieces, showing space combat in the game’s 2.5D engine as well as (quite briefly) some of the walking around on stations stuff. Looks like it might be pretty solid, although their site is missing a load of pages and info right now. The game is out “soon”, as far as a I can tell.
18/08/2011 at 10:13 Anjiro says:
Is there really an audience for this? It never ceases to amaze me how gaming standards drop when you slap Star Trek or Star Wars on something.
18/08/2011 at 10:54 Anthile says:
To be fair, there are quite a few good Star Wars games but I don’t remember the last decent Star Trek game.
18/08/2011 at 10:59 sneetch says:
I do, “Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force” well, it was the last good one I played anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Voyager_%E2%80%93_Elite_Force
18/08/2011 at 11:59 zergl says:
In addition to Elite Force, Star Trek: Armada was a quite good RTS, BOTF was a rather decent space 4X game and Starfleet Command was a quite nice real time tactics game.
Can’t recall anything good since then, though.
18/08/2011 at 13:28 DrGonzo says:
The megadrive game like this was also good.
This looks a bit of a shame though really. Star Trek should be about diplomatic and scientific solutions, not battles. They should be a minor part of the game really.
18/08/2011 at 14:07 tikey says:
Bridge Commander is also great.
19/08/2011 at 09:57 cafe says:
I have to agree, Elite Force 1 and 2 were both quite good! What i liked most was that you could scan all sorts of things with your little scanner thing (don’t kill me now i can’t remember what it’s called). Also i remember elite force 2 having an amazing arsenal of blasters, freeze staffs and laser weapons :) and i remember these really tense sneaking missions around the borg ships (at least scared me a lot when i was younger)!
18/08/2011 at 10:21 schizopol says:
even on TV, there’s always been an audience for star trek, the question is whether or not the studio can deliver on the actors, writers, and cgi.
same goes for games, they just need to make a good game, because star trek fans are generally more discerning about their computer games than most.
im more concerned over whether or not they can get away with using the name infinite space, isn’t that trademarked?
18/08/2011 at 11:13 Bursar says:
Star Trek Games that I enjoyed (though that doesn’t necessarily mean good).
Elite Force (both of them)
Bridge Commander was alright
Birth of the Federation
The Starfleet Command Games.
The TOS adventure games. (25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites).
18/08/2011 at 11:25 max pain says:
Bridge commander is great! Great mods and multiplayer still keep it alive.
18/08/2011 at 11:35 Alfius says:
Yeah I hop back on to Bridge Commander every few years, surprised it’s still going every time I do. Probably the best Star Trek game to date, a remake would be a pleasant surprise (hint), perhaps with a captain who wasn’t always welded to the seat though. The ability to take part in away missions would be awesome.
18/08/2011 at 19:34 Vandelay says:
Couple missing from Bursars list that I also liked are Final Unity and Starfleet Academy (I believe there was also a Klingon Academy made in the same engine, but I never played.)
Actually, for all the claims of there not being any good Star Trek games, there are quite a few.
18/08/2011 at 10:24 westyfield says:
How is this different to Star Trek Online, other than that it’s free to play? It looks very similar.
18/08/2011 at 10:29 RianXD says:
this is top down star trek online isnt.
18/08/2011 at 12:52 Jnx says:
This looks like it’s less than Star Trek Online. And the main problem with that one was that it wasn’t enough. Can’t see much future for this one.
19/08/2011 at 05:30 vexis58 says:
Also, this one is browser-based, while STO is a separate installed program.
18/08/2011 at 10:27 Inigo says:
But can you have Strange Adventures in it?
18/08/2011 at 10:32 Anthile says:
The trailers are certainly not set on stun.
18/08/2011 at 10:39 Kdansky says:
Game studios really need to grow up and do something that is not shooting and killing for a change. Star Trek is all about guns not being the right solution, yet all the games they make are murder simulators.
I am not bothered by the existence of shooting games. It’s the absence of anything else that bothers me.
18/08/2011 at 10:48 Hides-His-Eyes says:
DS9 is the one trek where violence kinda makes sense, but I totally agree. Where’s my star trek adventure game, where you literally go and have an adventure?
18/08/2011 at 10:51 Jumwa says:
Excellent points.
Even when Star Trek was about shooting and killing, such as the Dominion Wars of Deep Space 9, the main themes of the show were on the horrible consequences of it and how it began to threaten to change the Federation forever into something terrible internally, even without the enemy conquering them.
Star Trek, like Doctor Who, seems to be one of those shows that game makers just can’t fathom to work around. “What do you mean ‘make a game not about killing and looting?’ How do you do that?”
The gaming world desperately needs a little less angry testosterone in its inspiration and guidance.
18/08/2011 at 10:58 TeraTelnet says:
These games were already produced and were called ‘Star Trek: 25th Anniversary’ and ‘Star Trek: Judgement Rites’. Adventure games based on the original series that often had multiple ways to solve each adventure (or ‘episode’) and which indeed often penalised the player severely score-wise for choosing a violent option rather than using peaceful discussion.
They had space combat as well, but what’s Star Trek without the engines not being able ta take nae mare?
18/08/2011 at 11:22 Inigo says:
And of course you could make Redshirts die in droves.
18/08/2011 at 11:41 Moni says:
I always wanted to play 25th Anniversary, but I only had a A500 :(
18/08/2011 at 16:54 Bart Stewart says:
I’m right there with you, Kdansky et al.
When Star Trek Online was first announced — originally from Perpetual and then again from Cryptic — there were a number of us who tried our level best to point out that a proper Star Trek MMOG wouldn’t just clone the killin-n-lootin’ model of existing MMOGs. To do so would be to fail to take full advantage of an important part of the IP… and if you’re not going to at least try to reference (I say “reference,” not “slavishly adhere to”) the really canonical parts of an IP, why license it, and why think that your non-canonical whatever-it-is will attract fans of the license?
We did our best to make these points in a constructive and non-confrontational way. (I preserved a bunch of examples of this over on my blog if you’re really curious.)
And then STO launched. And we learned that what Cryptic had actually done is reskin its Champions Online game. Instead of designing a game that allowed player characters to work together as a crew on a “hero ship” to solve a mix of scientific and cultural and sometimes combat problems — pretty much the essence of Star Trek, I think — what we got for the space part was “you are your ship,” and you and your NPC crew (at least there was a crew) have “powers” that can be activated on cooldown timers.
Oh, and the Federation is at war with the Klingons again, ignoring every bit of the direction in which the canonical (and non-alternate timeline) had been going. And just for good measure, Cryptic decided that the Big Bad would be Species 8472 — you know, the ones with whom the Federation had also turned into, if not allies, at least friends by the end of Voyager. And all to support combat gameplay as by far the focus of gameplay in STO. (To be fair, Star Trek’s owners at CBS allowed this rewriting of history to happen.)
It’s not that we didn’t understand that fighting happens in Star Trek and even enjoy a bit of phasering things now and again. It’s that the business opportunity to pull in a larger audience by remaining true to the Star Trek philosophy of violence as a last resort (yes, even in TOS) was utterly ignored.
So I agree in full with those who, while they don’t mind a bit of shoot-em-up in the Star Trek universe, really wish that someone would “get it” and *also* offer a full-featured Star Trek MMORPG that emphasizes the solving of scientific and diplomatic challenges as enjoyable gameplay.
Is there really never going to be a developer who sees the value in designing a Star Trek game that actually gets what made Star Trek the valuable IP it is?
18/08/2011 at 10:41 zipdrive says:
I’m waiting for ST: Finite Space. Let’s see them do that!
18/08/2011 at 10:42 Horza says:
Not quite Starfleet Command then.
18/08/2011 at 10:53 Kelduum Revaan says:
Isn’t space sort of 3D, with those fancy “up” and “down” concepts?
I’m pretty sure they covered it in one of the movies…?
18/08/2011 at 11:37 Moni says:
His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.
18/08/2011 at 11:04 Yosharian says:
Why does it have to be an MMO. Fuck’s sake.
18/08/2011 at 12:49 propjoe says:
Indeed. As a single-player-only gamer, I cannot express my intense disappointment every time I see an awesome preview, only for it to be followed by the words “multiplayer/co-op/MMO”. I get it, people love to play in groups. It’s just not what I sit down at my PC for, and the current trend toward multiplayer everything is incredibly frustrating. This frustration is multiplied by my undying fondness for Star Trek.
18/08/2011 at 12:34 jon_hill987 says:
Expect a lawsuit from Bethesda regarding the use of the word Infinite. After all, someone might think it refers to the number of dragons in their upcoming game…
18/08/2011 at 12:55 sneetch says:
True. You can also clearly see a “sky” around the “rim” of those planets. A sky? Rim? Skyrim? Are we to believe that’s coincidental!?
18/08/2011 at 14:27 Toeofdoom says:
I was actually confused at first due to the existence of Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space and apparently some DS game we don’t care about here also called “Infinite Space”.
18/08/2011 at 14:16 mehteh says:
I would have cared about this if i didnt find out it was a browser game. god i hate browser games
18/08/2011 at 14:41 Rymosrac says:
WHY HAVE NONE OF YOU MENTIONED KLINGON ACADEMY?
I am dissapoint.
18/08/2011 at 14:55 Koozer says:
I second the motion for a Star Trek game that’s actually about Star Trek and not about shooting Klingons.
18/08/2011 at 16:31 D3xter says:
If you want to take a closer look/get more Info watch this from the last E3:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-star-trek/716091
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-star-trek/716094
Mike Okuda, which also works on the game drops by too xD
18/08/2011 at 19:05 Synesthesia says:
i just wanted to post this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XQbBxIHbHQ&feature=fvsr
18/08/2011 at 20:57 FakeAssName says:
I love how much the OS looks just like a shaw brothers kung-fu movie.
shit, now there’s a nerd style wet dream: star trek with the shaw brothers handling the fight scenes.