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Vintage Treasures: Adventure on the Final Frontier with Star Explorer

Vintage Treasures: Adventure on the Final Frontier with Star Explorer

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Star Explorer FGU-smallHow do you create a Star Trek game without a Star Trek license?

Turns out it’s not actually that hard — at least not if you follow the example of Star Explorer, the science fiction game of “Adventure on the Final Frontier” published in 1982 by Fantasy Games Unlimited.

Star Explorer was released three years after Star Fleet Battles, Steven V. Cole’s groundbreaking wargame from Task Force Games in 1979, and the same year as the first true Star Trek RPG, Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, published by FASA. Both competing titles were hits, with multiple editions over the next few decades.

In contrast, Star Explorer vanished pretty quickly, with virtually no supporting material at all. Which is a shame, because it had a lot of potential.

Star Explorer is an adventure game of exploration and encounter in deep space. It places you in the role of a starship captain who must command her ship on a variety of dangerous missions. Success depends on your ability to select the right crew for away missions and to tweak your ship design as required.

While it had some role playing aspects, it was really a board game, with a board and everything. Not a board that displayed tantalizing planets and star systems for you to explore, sadly. No, just a green, featureless tactical map used to resolve star combat. But you did get 240 colorful counters you could push around the map and imagine were exploring stuff.

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Star Trek Lives

Star Trek Lives

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enterpriseThis post is for Star Trek fans.

Let me be more specific. This post isn’t for fans who were brought in by the new movies, or fans of Star Trek: the Whatever – it’s for any of you who love the original TV show.

Maybe, like me, you grew up when it was the only science fiction on television, or – it’s possible — perhaps you’re a more recent convert.

I know a lot of original Star Trek fans who’ve dreamt from time to time that they’re watching an episode they’ve never seen before. I sure have. We wanted the stories to continue and sometimes our subconscious obliges. Here’s the amazing thing: I’ve recently watched something that plays almost like one of those dreams, albeit a coherent one.

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Fun with the Original Star Trek Crew

Fun with the Original Star Trek Crew

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I saw Star Trek Into Darkness last week, and quite enjoyed it… although overall, I tend to agree with those critics, like Gary Westfahl at Locus Online and Keith Decandido at Tor.com, who’ve pointed out that it’s kinda a mindless action flick with more in common with contemporary summer blockbusters than Star Trek. Still, my kids loved it — and so did the packed house — and I firmly believe that any filmmaker who can successfully re-imagine Star Trek, and ignite fresh interest in a whole new generation, deserves praise. Even if it’s not exactly the same Star Trek I enjoyed 40 years ago.

Besides, no one’s done anything to tarnish that Star Trek. So I’ve been quietly enjoying it at home. I watched “Space Seed” on DVD, and Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Blu-Ray. And I’ve recently discovered a host of Trek-themed advertisements from the 80s, including this delightful ad for a British power company starring William Shatner and James Doohan:

If that’s not enough for you, there’s also this AT&T ad from the late 80s, featuring virtually the entire cast… and a nice surprise at the end.

Enjoy!

New Treasures: Federation Commander: Klingon Border

New Treasures: Federation Commander: Klingon Border

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Federation Commander Klingon BorderIn honor of the US release of Star Trek Into Darkness this week, I found some of my favorite Star Trek games in the basement, and hugged them.

Took longer than you might expect. Turns out there are a lot of decent Star Trek titles. Over a dozen board games, for example — starting with West End’s terrific 1985 contributions, the paragraph-based Star Trek The Adventure Game and the more family-friendly The Enterprise Encounter, all the way up to Wizkids’ 2011 deluxe releases, Reiner Knizia’s solitaire/cooperative mission game Star Trek Expeditions and the strategic space exploration/ship-to-ship combat title Star Trek – Fleet Captains. Not to mention last year’s oddball Star Trek Catan from Mayfair Games.

Let’s not neglect the role playing games, starting with FASA’s classic 1983 Star Trek The Role Playing Game and the updated RPG from Last Unicorn Games in 1999. And of course, numerous card, deck-building, and collectible games, like Star Trek HeroClix from WizKids.

That’s not including dozens of computer and video games, starting with SSI’s unlicensed Apple II space-combat title The Warp Factor (1982), to the text-based The Promethean Prophecy (Simon & Schuster, 1984) and the classic adventure games from Interplay like Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (1992) and Judgment Rites (1993). I could go on, but my fingers are tired already.

But the great-granddaddy of Star Trek games has to be Star Fleet Battles, which began as a 1979 pocket game released in a zip-lock bag by Task Force Games and has grown into one of the largest franchises in table-top gaming, with countless expansions and variants from a small handful of publishers over the last three decades.

The title which got the warmest hug during my basement walkabout, and likely the one I’d grab if I were to be marooned on a lonely asteroid with a group of fellow Star Trek gamers, was Federation Commander: Klingon Border, a Star Fleet Battles mega-game which challenges you to take the helm of a Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser and hold the border during a massive Klingon invasion.

Admit it — that sounds like fun.

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Kirk Versus Gorn: The Rematch

Kirk Versus Gorn: The Rematch

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Star Trek GornWe like video games. We love Star Trek. And we believe William Shatner is the genetic template for a future race of supermen.

But when all three come together, as they have in this video spot for the upcoming Star Trek: The Video Game?

Magic.

Check out the YouTube video below, and you’ll understand.

Star Trek: The Video Game will be released April 23, 2013 for the Xbox, PS3, and PC. It was developed by Digital Extremes. Get more details at the website, www.startrekgame.com.

[Thanks to SF Signal for the tip.]

Adventure on Film: Why Hollywood Gets it Wrong

Adventure on Film: Why Hollywood Gets it Wrong

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star-trek-game-beams-up-in-april-2013.jpgAs I write this, April is just around the corner, and now that Hollywood’s best and brightest studios no longer know how to calculate the beginning of summer, I smell blockbuster season ripening fast on the vine. Just think, in mere weeks, we can all flock to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Wolverine, Oblivion, Pacific Rim, Elysium, and Man of Steel.

What do nearly all of these movies have in common? I’ll tell you, spoiler-free: the fate of the world will hang in the balance.

Which is why I shall be staying home –– again –– for blockbuster season. If I have learned anything in all my forays into drama, it is this: cinema offers no more boring subject, no greater snoozefest, than global peril.

Heresy, I know.

But I’m right. Here’s why.

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New Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer Features More ‘Splosions

New Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer Features More ‘Splosions

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The trailers are coming fast and furious now. This one reveals a bit more of the plot, including a high-level Federation meeting, some shots of 23rd Century London, and a chilling scene in the last few seconds.

We last reported on Star Trek Into Darkness when we asked “Did Entertainment Weekly Reveal that Benedict Cumberbatch is Playing Khan?” here, and in “Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation” (here).

Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J. J. Abrams, and written by Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci. It is the twelfth feature-length Star Trek film and the sequel to 2009′s Star Trek. It is set for release on May 17, 2013.

Did Entertainment Weekly Reveal that Benedict Cumberbatch is Playing Khan?

Did Entertainment Weekly Reveal that Benedict Cumberbatch is Playing Khan?

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Entertainment Weekly Star TrekIn a sharp-eyed bit of investigative reporting, Tor.com has reproduced screenshots from the Entertainment Weekly Back Issues store that name the villain in the upcoming J.J. Abrams film Star Trek Into Darkness as Khan.

As we reported back in December, speculation has been rampant around just whom Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing in the new film. IMDB originally listed his character as Gary Mitchell, the Enterprise officer who becomes an all-powerful psychic loonie in one of the show’s earliest and best episodes, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Rumors that he was playing Khan, the genetically-engineered supervillain originally portrayed by Ricardo Montalban in the episode “Space Seed” and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, eventually led the otherwise tight-lipped Cumberbatch to deny it.

As shown by Tor.com however, screen captures for the February 15 cover-dated issue of Entertainment Weekly allow you to select one of two covers, the “Spock & Kirk” cover, or the “Kirk & Khan” version.

EW hastily deleted the notations, and the latest version of the page gives no such identifiers.

In its current cast list, IMBD now lists Cumberbatch as playing “Khan (rumored),” and Alice Eve as playing Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk’s ex-flame and baby mama from Star Trek II.

The latest Super Bowl TV trailer for the film has been posted on YouTube. Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J. J. Abrams, and is set for release on May 17, 2013. As we reported in January, Abrams was also selected as the director for the next Star Wars film.

Meanwhile, there’s no truth to the rumor floating in fan circles that J.J. Abrams will also be tapped as the new pope.

The Rumors Are True: JJ Abrams to Helm Next Star Wars

The Rumors Are True: JJ Abrams to Helm Next Star Wars

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157825331JL169_Children_s_DLate last night, Walt Disney Studios announced that J.J. Abrams will direct the still-untitled Star Wars: Episode VII.

An announcement was expected following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in October and rumors have been swirling around Abrams for the last 48 hours.

In entertainment circles, this hook-up is akin to the marriage of Michael Jackson and Priscilla Presley, which made Jackson Elvis Presely’s son-in-law. Abrams, who directed 2009’s Star Trek, unites science fiction’s two largest film franchises under a single creative umbrella.

Abrams had an impressive television resume long before he became King of SF Film: his creations include Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe. He wrote and directed the Spielberg homage Super 8 and the action flick Mission: Impossible III, and co-wrote Armageddon. George Lucas said in a statement:

I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.

According to Disney’s Michael Arndt, the Oscar-winning writer of Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3, and the upcoming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, will write the screenplay. It will arrive in theaters in 2015, and Disney has announced plans to release a new Star Wars film every two to three years after that. The Empire Strikes Back writer Lawrence Kasdan will script the second, and Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes) is on deck for the third.

Rumors abound on the plot of the next three films, including whether or not they will include Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. Recent reports in The Guardian and Reuters suggest they could center on Luke Skywalker’s attempts to found a Jedi academy on the planet Yavin 4.

Star Trek Into Darkness Official Trailer Released

Star Trek Into Darkness Official Trailer Released

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It’s been a packed few weeks for Star Trek fans.

First Paramount released a one-minute teaser trailer which generated more questions than it answered. Then, viewers who attended the opening of The Hobbit on Friday were treated to the first nine minutes of the film. And now comes the release of the first full trailer.

It’s been fun to watch all the speculation that’s resulted (see Chris Lough’s entertaining article Has Star Trek Into Darkness Revealed That It’s the Contemporary Wrath of Khan? over at Tor.com, for example). If you’re looking for Wrath of Khan similarities, there’s a few big ones in the full trailer.  Check it out below.