There's one thing every Star Trek fan has dreamed of at least once in their lives, and that's taking the helm of a Federation starship. Sitting in the captain's chair, commanding a crew, exploring the depths of space, and making it so. It's somewhat surprising, then, that there are so few games that recreate this experience. Plenty of Trek games let you slip into the snug uniform of a Starfleet captain, but only one deeply simulates the moment-to-moment drama, thrills, and tension of being in command of a ship like the Enterprise.
Star Trek: Bridge Commander launched exclusively for the PC in February, 2002. In TV land, Voyager had just ended and prequel series Enterprise was into its second season. Star Trek's popularity was beginning to fade a little, and its long run of spin-off video games was slowing down as a result. In fact, Bridge Commander was arguably the last great Star Trek game. As the title suggests, it puts you in charge of your own ship, the USS Dauntless, and it doesn't take long for the shit to hit the fan. Turns out being a Starfleet captain is hard work.
At the very beginning of the game, a star mysteriously explodes and kills the captain of the Dauntless. Being the first officer, you're forced to step in and take over, and the ship immediately becomes your responsibility. While charismatic captains are a Star Trek staple, in Bridge Commander you play as a blank slate who never speaks. Your newly appointed first officer, Saffi Larsen, does all the talking for you. You give the orders and she promptly relays them to the crew. This lets you role-play as any kind of captain you want to be.
It's a first-person game, and you never leave the captain's chair. To issue orders to your crew, you use the mouse to spin the camera around and talk to them. If a Romulan Warbird suddenly decloaks, you can turn to Larsen and ask her to go to Red Alert, which powers up your weapons and shields. The lights on the bridge even dim like they do on TV, which is just one of many examples of Bridge Commander's fan-pleasing attention to detail. Getting to run the bridge from such an intimate perspective is a real treat for a Trekkie.
During battles, power management is everything. Swing your head around to your chief engineer, Brex, and you can ask him to divert power to and from various systems. If you want your scanner to cover a wider area, boost power to the sensor array. If you want your phaser cannons to hit harder, reroute power from another system to your weapons. It's all about balance, though. Draw out too much juice and your power transmission grid will overload, causing sparks and smoke to spew out of the consoles on the bridge.
Bridge Commander perfectly captures the chaos of a Star Trek space battle. You can even take control of the weapon systems yourself. Tactical officer Felix Savali will happily handle it for you, and the AI is decent enough, but sometimes you gotta roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. If you want a more dramatic view of the action you can switch to a third-person camera and see the Dauntless (and, later, an upgraded ship called the Sovereign) swooping through space firing phaser beams and photon torpedoes at the enemy.
It's just a great Star Trek game—and there are a few nice cameos from familiar faces too. In the first mission, you're taught the ropes by none other than Jean-Luc Picard, voiced by Patrick Stewart. On the Sovereign you're joined by Data, with Brent Spiner reprising his role as TV's most lovable android. I only wish the game gave you the opportunity to leave the bridge and explore other parts of the ship. You're permanently fused to your chair, which means no sneaking off to Ten Forward for an Aldebaran whisky.
Bridge Commander is essentially out of print, and is currently unavailable to legally buy on any digital platforms. So if you wanna play it you're either gonna have to track down an old copy, or secure it by some 'other' means. Amazingly, it runs on a modern PC without any hassle. Just make sure you download the official 1.1 patch for the best experience. I would love a Bridge Commander sequel, but I highly doubt it'll ever be resurrected. Ubisoft's Star Trek: Bridge Crew is a fun alternative, but nowhere near as deep.