Star Trek: The Next Generation

The Good
This game is directly ported from it's NES brother and is identical in game play and structure.

It's much better than the awful Game Boy version of the 25th Anniversary output. This game at least tries to stay true to some of the ethos of Star Trek and deliver a episode-like experience. Rather than focusing on one story the developers have tried to extend the game-life by introducing a random element for missions. Never leaving the bridge, players must complete a randomly created mission from a limited selection of scenarios, such as traveling from planet A to planet B to engage an enemy, or beam up/down someone. Each mission is given a time limit and at the end you are evaluated. Complete it in time and you rise up a rank from Ensign to Admiral.

The Bad
It's an interesting try. If only the missions had more depth and complexity. There's never a twist or plot development and once you get used to the pattern, it quickly becomes dull. Not that they're ever easy – far from it. Progress up a few ranks and the missions become nigh impossible as deadlines shrink and the controls become too cumbersome.

Many of the missions involve combat, which is really nasty to play. It's a simplified flight sim where you have to dogfight against the opponent, but the Enterprise is too lethargic, making it a headache. In fact, general control of the Enterprise is difficult as there's too many functions for the A and B buttons to handle. For example you cannot control the speed and direction at the same time, making precision impossible. You get to cycle through the various bridge stations by a horrible A, B, select and start combination that is not intuitive and even after repeated playing still got wrong, wasting valuable time in combat.

The control systems is the same for the Game Boy as the NES, except somehow it's become less responsive and more frustrating.

The Bottom Line
If you're a bit of Star Trek masochist and really want to play every Star Trek game then play the NES version, it's the same idea but slightly better even adding colour to the game.

I would have preferred less of a multi-mission approach and more in depth stories focusing on one thing at a time. Always being on the bridge feels cramped and isn't even offset by decent ship to ship combat. All things considered, it's still better than the awful 25th Anniversary game, but that's not really promising a lot is it?