Star Trek: Starship Creator

The game is simply not enough--I was hoping for a great deal more, and it doesn't deliver.

First--the software itself. It uses a Quicktime-based format that should result in some pretty spectacular graphics. Unfortunately, the game doesn't deliver them, and what is delivered is delivered with infuriating slowness. The "Systems" screen, especially, is terrible; slow to load almost everything, no matter how much RAM you give the program. It's annoying to select something on the clunky drop-down menus, then have to wait for (no exaggeration) 20 seconds or so before the selection even STARTS to load. Other problems abound; don't even try to use the page that supposedly allows you to preview your ship in a "wireframe model"; it doesn't work, and often crashes. So does naming your ship. you will more often than not get a "code error" that crashes the game then and there. And the "Missions"--these are missions? If I want to see a static display where the only action is a scroll of words, I'll just read a "Star Trek" novel--which is probably more exciting. I've learned to simply go read or watch TV--let the ship run along on its own.

In fairness, I will mention that the new "Expanded" version is a bit better--the bugs that crash the machine in the naming and preview areas are now fixed, and it also adds some missions with actual graphics (static ones, anyway) as well as a few new ships. However, those are the only improvements--not nearly enough for my taste.

Did I mention that MacMillan is under new ownership now? =-)


Great premise, short on action   February 4, 2000
Michael Naragon (Helena, Montana)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

Being an admitted Trekkie, I was excited to try Starship Creator to try my hand at creating the ultimate starship and blasting some pesky Klingons. The problem is, there are a lot of obstacles in the way of accomplishing this. The game touts itself as a "starship creator," with several class types to mix and match from. In actuality, you have a few ship types and a few customizeable options for each. It doesn't allow for too much creativity. And my dreams of teaming up James T. Kirk with Jean-Luc Picard were dashed. When selecting a crew for your ship, you can only choose a crew from the ship's time period. For example, only characters from the original series can fly in the original Enterprise ship class... Kirk cannot be selected to pilot the ship classes from Next Generation or Voyager. Thus, Kirk and Picard can not serve on the same crew, or Data and Spock, or Sulu and Janeway. This took a lot of the fun out for me. The missions you fly with the ship are simply brutal. There's precious little action and it takes a LONG time, even with the time acceleration on. So I'd say even if you're a Trek fan, I'd be careful of this one.


Create a Starship and then what...   November 24, 2000
Brian A. Wolters (Cabot, Arkansas)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

Starship Creator sounds like every Star Trek fan's dream: Build your ship, choose your "dream" crew and then fly it.

Once you start to build your ship, you will soon see that there isn't much freedom to build a ship. You have a pre-set amount of parts to choose from and that is it.

Then you get to choose your crew, which is fun, because you can choose from many of the established characters.

But once you get to fly your ship, the programs looses all of it's since of awe. It is very boring from this point forward.

Yes, this is yet another collectors item, but nothing more.


Great!   November 26, 1999
Natalie (NJ USA)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful

I loved this sofware, and anyone who likes Star Trek: TOS through Voyager should get this, and anyone interested in the technichal structure of Starships should buy this! I loved it!