Okuda to serve as design consultant for Star Trek Online
As a longtime fan of all things Trek, it almost pains me to write anything about it, whether from the classic series or its numerous game adaptations, due to its steady decline and eventual TV production hiatus starting this year. Fellow fans may receive some type of interactive outlet for their geekier impulses, however, when Star Trek Online finally rolls onto computers in a few years' time. (Development is expected to take at least two years, and the beta will probably begin in 2006.)
At any rate, the best news I've heard so far is that veteran Trek staffer Michael Okuda — trusted fount of technical knowledge and creator of the computer interface used from TNG (The Next Generation) on — has signed onboard as a design consultant for the MMO's development team at Perpetual Entertainment. His job will be to integrate the look-and-feel of his well-worn LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System) interface into the game, and "to help visualize the future of the Star Trek universe," as the game will be set twenty years after the last Star Trek film (i.e., Nemesis). Not only will new Starfleet uniforms be used in ST Online, but an updated version of LCARS will be featured as well, which is why I've posted the interface concept above that Okuda unveiled at last weekend's Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. A non-interactive Shockwave demo can also be found at Perpetual's media page here.
Visual fidelity to a film or television property has never been a guarantee of a game's success (witness the first two games based on The Matrix franchise), so that may not change with Star Trek Online. But it is comforting to this closet Trekkie that the computer screens will at least be in good hands. Now if they started making a truly next-gen Battlestar Galactica game, I'd be a very happy man.
[via Next Generation]
