Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (video game)
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There have been two games bearing the name Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, both by Interplay. The first was released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega 32X. On the former system it was moderately well received and quite a technologically advanced game for the SNES, while the Sega 32X version was a bit less well-regarded due to some control issues, and being a slightly less impressive title by the standards of that system. Neither version set the world alight in terms of sales however, and the console version was soon forgotten.
The second and more renowned version was released for the PC in 1997. This game, released at the dawn of the 3D Acceleration era, featured much improved graphics and far better space battles. Moreover, it included live action cutscenes with several Star Trek actors (including William Shatner, George Takei and Walter Koenig) playing their characters. There were a lot of similarities between this game and its console forerunner (the character names were mostly the same, for instance), though it was quite different structurally. An expansion pack, Chekov's Lost Missions, was released the following year.
The PC game had a spiritual successor, Star Trek Klingon Academy, released in 2000. Interplay were apparently planning a true sequel which would have taken place during the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation, though they lost their Star Trek licence before they could do any serious work on the game.
- Cutscene: The PC version was one of a host of games in the mid-late 90s which used live-action actors in the cutscenes.
- Expansion Pack Hook: During the course of the PC version, you meet Chekov as he is working on some new simulation scenarios for the Academy. These eventually form the basis of the Chekov's Lost Missions expansion pack.
- Failure Is the Only Option: At the end of the game, you are forced to play through the famed no-win Kobayashi Maru simulation.
- Multiple Endings: Featured in the console version; averted in the PC version, which has a set storyline to play through.
- Take That: An in-universe version with one of the training simulations being a partially disguised recreation of the Battle of the Mutuara Nebula in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan which Kirk sheepishly admits begins with the lesson that when a ship is approaching you and refusing to communicate, you are supposed to take a defensive posture and raise your shields.
- What the Hell, Player?: If you fire weapons at the starbase in the PC version, the mission instantly aborts and you get chewed out by your supervisor, who tells you that "Starfleet is an institution for adults, not children."
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The console version includes this, with the results varying on how well you did across the course of the game. At worst, everyone flunks the academy and ends up working in various dead-end careers across the galaxy, and there are various different endings that go all the way up to the player character becoming the first captain of the USS Enterprise-B.
