Based on the Klingon version of Starfleet Academy, Star Trek: Klingon Academy proved to be, at times, thrilling, while mostly infuriating. With all the cute FMV cuts using General Chang (Christopher Plummer) and Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) as your advisors from hell, you’re lucky to even make it out of the classroom alive.

Force, speed, power, and aggression are your classroom creedos when you go out on your first mission, hand picked for you by your ever helpful advisors. I tried out all of the 25+ missions and was toasted to a fine lump of charcoal on most of them. The most enjoyment I managed to receive was putting together a vast armada of deadly warships in order to go out and kick some puny human butts, or any other alien ships that just happen to be in the neighborhood.

The biggest problem with this game was maintaining a tight control of the multiple ship systems. Just running the helm creates all sorts of problems, and using all the hot keys for faster controls is way tricky. In a tight combat attack against the Starfleet or any other type of heavy duty cruiser, you need more hands then a whole team of K'thamNba’s to run the ship.

In the heat of a close battle, if you give up control of even one other department to the game’s AI, your chances of a glorious death are pretty much a given. In the StarWars games, the ships are small sleek and fast as hell — in ST:KA the ship’s physics are pretty much right on, with a capital K for Kill, Krush, and Konquer. The larger ships are so slow to come around to the helm that the battle is usually over before you can signal for a port turn, or even self–destruct like a good little Klingon.

The developers created a really large and slow moving space sim in ST:KA. The only tactic I was any good at was wading right into battle with all shields up on full and all weapons systems blazing away. "Kill ’em all and let the gods of all those who died sort ’em out!" Just be sure your shields don’t go down and you might make it back alive. Disabling a ship and beaming over a boarding party of Klingon Troopies should become a standard battle tactic. Ask them to surrender and then blow them to atoms — that’s the ticket.

A full tutorial on Klingon battle tactics in the training section would have gone a long way toward improving the playability of the game. Of course, that would have probably meant another disc added to make the total package a handy seven — the mind staggers at all the wasted data space!

Multiplayer mode wasn’t much better, just more interesting. Trying to set up teams in a six player Net game or in an eight player LAN setup was a headache waiting to happen. As if coordinating a single player battle wasn’t hard enough, the lag time got worse in online play. Tactical maneuvers seemed to drag on forever, even with a 56k modem, it’s probably better with a DSL or faster hookup.

Even Star Trek hardcore fans that can find no wrong in anything labeled Star Trek will have to give in to the weaknesses in this game. Graphically, the game was awesome, with some of the best crashes and explosions I have ever had the pleasure to witness, or be responsible for. The damage done to the ships is pretty right–on physically too, with each contact, whether a laser or torpedo hit, looking realistic. If you have a 19–inch or larger monitor the game takes on a whole new luster graphically, but still lacks the real punch it needs.

The soundtrack was OK, but a little short on the power found on the usual cinema track. I used a surround system that improved the music and sounds.

All in all, this could have been a landmark game, given all the time spent in development. As a big Star Trek fan, I was pretty disappointed in the final product. If they ever venture again into the Klingon realm, please, please, please, do it right this time. I spent weeks on a voyage where no journalist should have been forced to go — ever.