Star Trek: Starfleet Command - Orion Pirates

There are some games that have you on the edge of your seat for the wrong reasons. This is one of them. More than once I glanced nervously over my shoulder to see if anyone was going to enter the room and catch me playing it. Not because it's a bad game, but because it's so inherently geeky, with its ancient interface and realms of techy-sounding dials and buttons. A casual onlooker would fear for your sanity if they happened by and saw you stuck in front of your computer twiddling knobs and playing with little Star Trek spaceships. That's not to say it's particularly tricky. What seems at first glance to be a scary heavy-duty strategy game is actually a fairly simple series of missions in which you take control of a spaceship and go about the serious business of blowing up lots of other spaceships. The biggest challenge in Orion Pirates is not in making key strategic decisions at vital moments, but rather in managing the energy usage of your ship.

Your ship's weapons use energy when you fire them, which in turn cuts down the amount of energy available for powering other parts of your ship. For example, your speed is determined by how much energy you have available - if your energy is low, your ship will travel at a snail's pace. Graphically, it's a mixed bag. The actual combat screen OK, with satisfying and colourful explosions, but the ship control screen looks as though it has almost been lifted from an old Amiga game with its big brash boxes and bland colours.

You also have the opportunity to play as the Orion Pirates for the first time and a 12-mission campaign plus three bonus missions based on the TV episode entitled A Piece Of The Action are also included. If you like your space combat relaxed and thoughtful as opposed to frenetic, you could do a lot worse than giving Orion Pirates a whirl. Star Trek fans, of course, will love it. Sorry, I just had to say that.