Probably the oldest science fiction franchise turned to marketing purposes was Buck Rogers. But come into the post-WWII era and the next really big one is Star Trek. I distinctly remember Star Trek toys and model kits from my childhood. As the digital age came on, Star Trek entered the virtual computer world quite smoothly; first in the arcades via Sega’s Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator and later via a whole slew of games on PCs, consoles, handhelds and stand-alones. But in the 21st century Trek fell on hard times. The last couple of TV series did not do well in the ratings and Activision, the last company to hold rights to make Trek games, had a messy breakup with license owner Paramount. Well after a few years in cyber limbo, Star Trek games will once again warp across gamer’s screens thanks to Bethesda Softworks, maker of this year’s hottest adventure game, Eldar Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Can Bethesda make a go of the Trek license where others have failed? If what I saw at E3 2006 is any indication, you bet your asteroids they can.

Star Trek: Legacy is definitely the flagship of Bethesda’s Star Trek offerings. This epic game from developer Mad-Doc Software spans all three era’s of Star Trek that have been extensively explored in the TV series Enterprise, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager and also the ten movies. The game offers space battles involving anywhere from one-on-one battles to massive fleet actions.

During the demonstration the presenter first showed the clearly enthusiastic and Trek-fan audience a scenario that had the Federation ship Enterprise battling the captured-by-Kahn Federation ship Reliant, just as they did in the second Trek movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. The show was nothing short of amazing. The two ships maneuvered against each other to bring different banks of weapons to bear. Power was shunted between systems to boost shield and weapons or to control damage. It was as if the player were really the captain and he was giving orders to the bridge crew to make all the elements that go into commanding a starship in a struggle for its life happen.

The next demonstration scenario had Federation and Klingon ships defending the Deep Space Nine space station from attacking Romulan forces. Here we got a taste of the fleet-command elements of the game. Through orders the player could deploy his fleet to ravage enemy flanks or draw them off their attack on the station. As a number of different types of ships made up the fleet, their unique properties of speed, maneuverability, shielding and firepower had to be taken into consideration with every decision. While initial contact and orders were issued from the fleet flagship, the player was also free to hot swap between command of any ship in the fleet to directly affect the outcome of individual ship-to-ship battles. As the battle went on, a nasty twist occurred: a Borg tactical cube showed up. At this point all the other races put aside their differences to defend against this enormous intruder in a spectacular battle involving more than a dozen ships.

In addition to individual battles, there will also be a single-player campaign that will span all three Trek eras. The player will be able to play as either Federation, Klingon, Romulan or Borg and command over 60 different ships in the game. And naturally there will be a full-realized multiplayer mode where you can finally stick a photon torpedo up your best friend’s nose.

The game was truly impressive in its scope. It also did not hurt that the visuals and sound were absolutely stunning with outstanding attention to detail. The Bethesda representative said that they were even trying to get as many cast members as possible to do voices for the game but could not comment on who they had so far.

Star Trek: Legacy is scheduled to release the third quarter of this year for both the PC and Xbox 360.

If you like your Trek on the go, you won’t be left out in the cold either. Star Trek: Tactical Assault is also coming in the third quarter for Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS from developer Quicksilver Software.

Proving it is a small industry after all, my demonstrator for ST: TA was Cory Nelson, a producer at Quicksilver that I worked with in my PR days when my employer, Infogrames, was publishing Master of Orion 3. Cory was extremely excited about his latest project.

ST: TA is not quite so grand in scope as Legacy: it only covers the original series. Here you really get to play the greatest Star Fleet captain of all time: James Tiberius Kirk. (Hey! Sit down and shut up you Pickard lovers. This is my article and I’m going to give my opinion.)