10 Best Star Trek Video Games, Ranked

When you are one of the longest-running science fiction franchises in history, you are inevitably going to spawn a few video game spin-offs. That has definitely been the case for Star Trek. The Original Series debuted on CBS in September 1966, with new series still in production today. The first video game showed up on computers in 1971 and was a text-based strategy game written in BASIC.

Dozens upon dozens of games followed, on computers, consoles and most recently in the world of mobile gaming. But you can't have that many games without some inevitably standing out above the rest.

10 Star Trek: Legacy

In 2006, Bethesda, the game publisher behind the Fallout series, the Dishonored series, and the recent Doom games, released Legacy for Windows and Xbox 360. It allowed the player to control groups of Starfleet ships through three different eras. Featuring voice work from Star Trek actors, this was the first time William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, and Scott Bakula were part of the same project. The PC version of the game was panned due to numerous glitches and controls that simply didn't work. But the Xbox 360 version was much better, allowing users to experience the epic starship battles without the game falling apart in front of them.

9 Star Trek: Armada

Most Star Trek games put you in charge of specific crew members or a ship. Armada one-upped that by making you an admiral in charge of your own fleet. The real-time strategy game was based, for the most part, on the wold presented in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It even featured characters from the series and they were voiced by the actors who played them. That included Patrick Stewart voicing Jean-Luc Picard.

Reception from critics at the time it came out in 2000 for Windows was mixed at best but fans seemed to enjoy it despite nagging issues. It still has a hardcore group of followers today.

8 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen

The year 2000 also produced Deep Space Nine: The Fallen for both Windows and Mac, though this one is a third-person shooter. This game takes cues from a trio of novels written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. In case you didn't know, there are also a lot of books that expand the Star Trek Universe to enjoy. The Fallen gives you the option to play as Captain Benjamin Sisko, Major Kira Nerys or Lt. Commander Worf. While you can play through the game as one character, certain levels need to be completed by certain characters. This means the gameplay and story are somewhat different depending on which person you choose.

7 Star Trek: Judgment Rites

If you've been playing Star Trek video games for a while, this one is going to give you a little nostalgia. Judgment Rites was released in 1993 for DOS and Mac. It actually used the same engine as a Star Trek game released in 1992, but Judgement Rites improved the graphics dramatically as well as upgrading both the gameplay and the story. The game gave fans new adventures with The Original Series crew.

You control Captain James T. Kirk as he works with his team to complete eight different episodes that happen both on and off the Enterprise. Judgment Rites is also a key piece of Star Trek history as it was the last production that the entire cast of The Original Series was together for.

6 Star Trek: Timelines

In more recent years, there have been several Star Trek games created for mobile devices. Timelines was designed to be played on both iOS and Android devices as well as through Facebook. The story hinges on a temporal anomaly, a favorite plot device in any Star Trek production. It has allowed characters from every TV series, movie, and a variety of other sources to come together. Like many mobile games, Timelines requires you to collect and upgrade ships and crew to advance through any aspect of the game. As such, it's filled with an array of ways to spend real money. But it's still cool that characters from so many eras timelines of Star Trek converged in one place.

5 Star Trek: Bridge Commander

Released in 2002, Bridge Commander is a straight-up, no holds barred space combat simulator for Windows. The story mode centered around a new captain taking control of a starship to face off against a new threat to the Federation.

The game also featured a "quick battle mode" that allowed the player to set up unique, custom scenarios to work through. Modding made that even more interesting. The story was extremely linear but it's still a classic space combat simulator.

4 Star Trek: Starfleet Command

Starfleet Command was a 1999 Windows game based on the tabletop wargame Star Fleet Battles, which came out in 1979. Another space combat simulator, this one had no central plot and gave players the choice to play as one of six galactic powers. Playing as each one of them provides different information that gives the player a wider understanding of an older race that has long since left the region. Fans and critics both loved the game, which is probably why the Gold Edition came out in 2000.

3 Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force

It's rare that a first-person shooter set in the world of Star Trek works but this game is the exception. Originally released for Windows and Mac in 2000, Elite Force was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It featured both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer option that allowed up to 32 participants.

The player is a part of a Hazard Team and is trying to help solve the latest crisis the Voyager team is subjected to in the Delta Quadrant. Critics and fans praised many aspects of the game even though the single-player campaign was quite short.

2 Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity

It might be hard to believe that a game released in 1995 for MS-DOS and Macintosh would be so high up this list but the game belongs here. A Final Unity was a commercial and critical success, often receiving praise for translating the world of The Next Generation faithfully and accurately to another medium. The crew of the Enterprise set out to help Romulan refugees search for a mysterious artifact. Naturally, the story isn't that simple. If you take the approximate stardate of this mission, it reputedly happens between episodes one and two of the seventh season of The Next Generation.

1 Star Trek: Online

This is Star Trek at its best. The nature of the franchise makes it perfectly suited to being a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Set 30 years after the events detailed in the film Star Trek: Nemesis, Starfleet faces off against various adversaries such as the Romulans, Borg and many more. Their treaty with the Klingons has also collapsed, leading to renewed hostilities. Each player gets their own ship and crew to use, allowing for varied gameplay options. Thanks to a series of expansions, the world has only gotten larger and more robust. It was originally released on Windows, and eventually PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. There was a period it was available on OS X but that version never worked right and was shut down after a couple of years.

Source: screenrant.com