Star Trek Infinite Released! (4X strategy Stellaris & Birth of The Federation like game)

I’ve recently been posting about my interest in the new Birth of the Federation and Stellaris looking Star Trek game from Paradox called Star Trek Infinite. Well now the game is out and sure enough the whole release has been a bit rocky with some nasty bugs, but I never play day 1 releases anymore anyway and it’s definitely gonna be a long time before I get to it, so all good lol. Let the patches, DLCs & fan mods floooow and in a year or 2 we should hopefully have something pretty good! In the meantime I’m certainly enjoying their dev diaries and videos!

I love that lovely nostalgic TNG art style of their’s.. There’s something about it that reminds me of  Star Trek TNG Final Unity’s art style (a great old Trek game also covered on my Star Trek Website) in that it was quite realistic but retained a bit of a artistic painted look. Every time I read the ST Infinite dev diaries it makes we want to play good old Final Unity again heh!
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Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1622900/Star_Trek_Infinite/

Dev diaries: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1622900

Cool ‘first day’ gameplay trailer..

Release story trailer…

Interesting that story wise they appear to be basing it around the yesterdays enterprise alternate universe but presumably before the Feds start losing the war to the Klingons and you get to ‘set a new path’..
Reminds me of a great Civ4 Star Trek mod scenario set in that timeline as well where you gotta try and turn the war around for the Feds. I show it around the 9:30 mark of this video below..

Star Trek Infinite Dev Diaries & Preview (4X strategy Stellaris & Birth of The Federation like game)

I recently posted about my excitement for the new Birth of the Federation and Stellaris looking Star Trek game from Paradox called Star Trek Infinite. IGN recently did a nice preview on it and now the developers have started releasing dev diaries for it that even directly mention BOTF as inspiration and recreating that experience which is great. I’m loving all their TNG/DS9/VOY era artwork (presumably used in the game’s many events and story trees).

Dev diaries: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1622900

UPDATE: Game released! Plus cool new videos HERE!

Star Trek Infinite – The closest thing to Birth of The Federation 2 we’ll probably ever get

Well this is a bit of a surprise! We’re getting a new 4X strategy Star Trek game! I’ve told the story on this blog before of that night in 1999 when I finally got my hands on the last day 1 copy of Star Trek Birth of the Federation in my city and fell in love with it, playing it again and again for years and dreamed of a sequel that never came due to Microprose’s demise. In that same blog post I also gave you guys a tour of each of the major BOTF2 fan projects that are quite playable these days and continue to be worked on (I hope to do new tour videos in the future) and that without them and the BOTF modding community we’d would have had nothing over the years.

While we’ll probably never get an official Star Trek Birth of the Federation 2 it now looks like we’re getting an entirely new Star Trek 4X strategy game from Paradox called Star Trek Infinite that much like good old BOTF is set in the TNG era with Picard, Gowron, Gul Dukat, and many more characters from TNG, DS9 and Voyager! You can play as the United Federation of Planets, Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, or Cardassian Union (sorry no Ferengi this time haha) and a huge array of minor races to ally or conquer just like in BOTF. While this might not exactly be the BOTF2 sequel many of us have hoped for, it does look a LOT like the popular Star Trek mod for Stellaris, so I guess Paradox thought “lets make that a real thing” lol, grabbed the Trek licence and enlisted the help of Nimble Giant Entertainment who created the gorgeous looking big budget Master of Orion reboot a few years back to make it happen. Hmm the same people behind a Master of Orion game making a Star Trek 4X game… that story sounds familiar. 😉 While I’ve not played the Star Trek mod for Stellaris myself I’ve heard many times over the years from it’s players that it often reminded them of BOTF so it will be very interesting to see just how similar this new game will be. Judging by the steam screenshots there will be story/quest elements much like with Stellaris too. Will be interesting to see if the Borg make a nasty appearance (judging by the teaser vid they will just like in BOTF), how much control we’ll have over battle sequences, if the game does well enough to have more playable races added via DLC addons (eg Dominion), and how mod friendly it will be.

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1622900/Star_Trek_Infinite/
UPDATE: New videos and dev diaries HERE!
UPDATE2: Game released! Plus cool new videos HERE!

Star Trek Borg & Star Trek Klingon Movies

I recently posted about the Starfleet Academy movie fan cut using footage from the Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy, and that got me thinking about how I’d never got around to playing or watching the other big FMV Star Trek Games from the 90s Star Trek Borg and Star Trek Klingon. So I went hunting and found some great long play videos where there’s no commentary and every story alternative is played out for you allowing you to just sit back and watch them like a tv episode or film.

These interactive FMV games were made in the mid 90s when Star Trek was firing on all cylinders giving them access to the TV shows sets and actors. No big names other than John de Lancie (our favourite superbeing Q), Robert O’Reilly (Gowron) and J. G. Hertzler (Martok) appear but you will recognise many of the actors in both games from their many guest ‘alien or crew member of the week’ appearances on TNG, DS9, Voyager and the TNG films too.

Star Trek Borg was directed James L. Conway who directed many Trek episodes and Star Trek Klingon was directed by none other than Jonathan Frakes (Riker) so both games really do feel like interactive episodes of trek due to the directions, sets and actors. Fans of Q and Gowron will definitely enjoy these as both John de Lancie and Robert O’Reilly are brilliant!

Star Trek Starfleet Academy The Movie

Despite being a big classic Star Trek gamer (hence why I have a massive Star Trek Gaming Website section at Blake’s Sanctum) I never did get around to playing Interplay’s Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy games other than maybe a quick try of a demo or 2. The gameplay never blew me away however what I did regret missing was all the FMV cutscenes with original cast members including William Shatner (Kirk), Walter Koenig (Chekov), and George Takei (Sulu) along with Star Trek 6’s excellent Klingons Christopher Plummer (General Chang) and David Warner (Chancellor Gorkon).

Well thankfully a youtuber has gathered all the FMV cutscenes and arranged/cut a movie out of them that has over 2 million views now! It’s quite funny looking in the comments and seeing all these confused people saying “I didn’t know about this movie, how is this possible??” failing to realise its from video games haha!

Seeing this makes me want to check about all the FMV footage from the Star Trek Borg and Star Trek Klingon games too!

Star Trek Picard Series

Any one else pumped for this?? A brand new Star Trek show that is actually a sequel with original actors instead of a prequel with new actors. As the creator of Star Trek TNG vs the Borg ZDoom clearly it should be no surprise that I am haha! 😛

Data, 7 of 9, the Borg, Hugh (borg guy from TNG), and apparently Riker & Troi too.. all back!!

CBS region locked the trailer surprise surprise but I found a amazon international one:

Also found this trailer analysis by Trek Central. Looks like they going with post apocalypse (the controversial supernova event) Romulan’s experimenting with Borg technology presumably to try and regain some lost power. Gotta love the lab sign saying 5,843 days without assimilation lol! Looks like they have control of a cube too. Considering Romulan’s and Borg were my favourite villains from TNG this pleases me greatly.

Star Trek Doom featured on PCGamesN in 2019!

Well it’s happened again! It was a real thrill a while back when my Quest for Glory IV 3D Hexen mod got featured on Rock Paper Shotgun and then in none other than PC Gamer Magazine US & UK but I was bit sad that Star Trek Doom was largely ignored as I expected that to be the bigger news. Well now in 2019 finally Star Trek Doom has been featured somewhere haha! A fellow named Richard Scott-Jones has done a really nice and very complimentary article on my mod over at PCGamesN and sure enough it’s led to new viewers visiting my mod pages and videos which is awesome! 🙂

https://www.pcgamesn.com/star-trek-doom

Star Trek Doom & Quest for Glory IV 3D Projects UPDATED & FIXED!

Yes really haha! I’ve worked for a bit again on BOTH my Star Trek Doom Project (GZDoom Doom 2 mod) and my Quest for Glory IV 3D Project (GZDoom Hexen mod). Loyal fans will know that for some time now my mods have sadly been unplayable due to the discontinuation of ZDoom and the latest versions of GDZoom triggering horrible game ending bugs.

I tried and tried and tried and just couldn’t figure out what was going on and why the newer versions were rejecting my MAPINFOs. I even went to some of the big ZDoom community veterans behind some of the best mods out there for help and even they couldn’t see what was wrong. I gave up, told every fan to stick with an old version of ZDoom/GZDoom and just didn’t wanna touch the project again such was my frustration with what happened.

But then just for the hell of it I decided to take the risk of reporting my issue as a bug to the GZDoom. I was worried they’d tear me a new one for suggesting that their program was the program and not my cr*ppy scripting but thankfully they were good to me and saw the problem right away!! I followed their advice and sure enough everything started working again!! 🙂

So as a result I’ve re-released both mods and updated their documentation. If you’ve recently download my mod fear not, I’m just running late with announcing this and I actually updated my downloads a while back so your version ‘should’ be all good. But if in doubt, go and download again. 🙂

Pics, videos and updated downloads at:

– Star Trek Doom Project Homepage
– NEW Star Trek Doom Project ModDB Page

– Quest for Glory IV 3D Hexen Project Homepage
– NEW Quest for Glory IV 3D Hexen Project ModDB Page

 

Star Trek The Next Generation Echoes From the Past: SS Nakatomi Walkthrough

Hey guys 🙂

Originally described as impossible by Wikipedia the SS Nakatomi hostage rescue mission in Star Trek The Next Generation Echoes From the Past for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive was a nightmare for those lucky enough to even find the mission (you could easily miss it).

Using the easier SNES Future’s Past version I created maps and used them to help conquer the Genesis version. I then created a Walkthrough that as far as I know is the only walkthrough in existence for this mission as all other Walkthroughs for this game tell you to skip the mission and let the hostages die.

This walkthrough has been a few years in the making but I’m now releasing it to the public! You can get it from my Star Trek Gaming Website where I have a huge mission by mission tribute to STTNG Echoes From the Past that includes maps I’ve made for every away mission. I’ve also recently submitted a copy to GameFAQs which they accepted!

I also have a full video version of the walkthrough on youtube here:

Star Trek Birth of the Federation 2 Sequel Projects in 2017

I still consider Star Trek The Next Generation – Birth of the Federation to be one of the greatest Star Trek games ever made, which is why I gave it a big tribute on my Star Trek Games website. I was a big Master of Orion 1&2 player back in the day so to a play a Star Trek version of that was a dream that had become a reality. I still remember that friday night in 1999 when BOTF was released and I first brought it home. My mate James and I were calling every video game shop in my city but all copies were sold out as trekies were all racing to get this game. Finally just before 9pm at night (closing time) we found a place with 1 copy left, jumped in the car and sped over there to get it! I stayed up all night playing BOTF and played it nonstop for days, weeks, months, and still came back to it repeatedly after years! So did James as he discovered that if you started the game with the cd you could take it out and still play, so for days he kept showing up at my house to borrow the disc for 20mins haha!

UPDATE 24/07/2023: New official Star Trek 4X game in development (not BOTF2 though).

Like many trekies I was devastated when Micropose lost the licence and fell apart ensuring there’d probably never be a sequel to BOTF. However fortunately in the early 2000s several fan groups decided to take on the mantle of making a BOTF2 sequel. The 2 biggest were the Star Trek Supremacy and Birth of The Empires projects. I religiously followed them though all the 2000s however as the project updates got rather quiet I sadly lost track in the 2010s and just figured the projects had died like so many other great fan projects out there. However recently I decided to investigate to see if these great old BOTF2 projects were still alive after 15 years and much to my surprise and joy, they were! In fact due to a breakup in the Supremacy group now there were now 3 BOTF2 projects out there – the ST BOTF2 Supremacy Project, the ST BOTF2 Rise Of The UFP Project (split from Supremacy) and the Birth of the Empires Project. All 3 projects were way more complete then I expected and you can literally play long games as the original races or cool new ones such as the Borg or Dominion in them right now!

Sadly because these projects have sort of disappeared from the limelight over this decade they don’t seem to have quite the huge followings they had back in the 2000s likely because of website moves, forum closures and fans like me just thinking they were dead. To help fix this I decided to make some long detailed tour videos of each 3 projects showing you just how cool and complete they are. If you loved playing BOTF back in the day then I strongly suggest you check out these 3 projects and visit their forums to show your support! There’s not many people left working on these projects so they could use all the help they can get! Feel free to do what I’m doing and offer help to all of them. I’ve been working with both the BOTF2 Supremacy & Rise Of UFP project guys to add more Remen content to the Romulans (Scimitar & Shock Troop centres etc) and it’s been a great experience. They’re all really nice guys and open to suggestions and very open to offers of help. 🙂

Here are the 3 projects:

Star Trek BOTF2 Supremacy Project

The first big BOTF2 project that started it all has come a long way over the years and is very fun and stable to play. Play as the Dominion? Yes please! This video was filmed earlier in the year so the project has had MANY updates since (incl playable Borg!).
Link to Project Forum (tell them Blake sent ya!)
Download latest WIP Demo
Link to their new project site
Link to my tribute page with more pics and info
(Shortcut links to each race/faction tour in video description on youtube page)