Voyager (video game)

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Voyager
Single-player

Voyager was a

Viacom New Media. Based on the Star Trek: Voyager license, the game followed Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager in their attempts to rescue members of their team from the Kazon. Voyager was the first game in a multi-title agreement between Viacom and Looking Glass, and Viacom took a minority equity investment in the company as part of the deal. However, Viacom decided to leave the video game industry in 1997, and Voyager was cancelled in spring of that year. In response to Voyager's cancellation, team members Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier left Looking Glass to found Irrational Games
.

Overview

Voyager was an

episodes". The game began as the USS Voyager resupplied at an agricultural planet, only to have certain members of its crew kidnapped by the Kazon. As Janeway and the surviving team tracked the Kazon, they encountered such things as other alien races and "an abandoned planet occupied only by a single computer system". Unlike in other Star Trek video games of the time, the player manipulated the crew at a high and general level. The player selected the crew's course of action from a list of options during "decision point" scenes, after which the crew would carry out their orders automatically. Certain decisions continued the plot, while others led to dead ends or to a game over. Producer Alan Dickens said, "We want to make it a lot like you're watching the TV and yelling at the characters. You're giving them, as a team, guidance and direction on where they should go and how they should address the various problems that come before them."[1]

Between decision points, the player used and combined items, solved puzzles and engaged in combat. The game's item system involved scanning objects with

The Incredible Machine—a video game series in which players create Rube Goldberg machines—were a main feature in Voyager: the player would receive collections of mechanical parts, which would have to be combined into complex mechanisms. Combat took place on the ground and in space, and like other scenes was controlled at a general level. The player could order the crew to provide suppressive fire, to maneuver or to beam out, for example, and would then watch the scene play out.[1]

Development and aftermath

Looking Glass Technologies scanned the heads of Star Trek: Voyager's cast to create more accurate 3D models for the game.

Voyager began development in 1995,

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June, a writer for Computer Games Strategy Plus called it "one of the most highly anticipated projects currently floating around the game world."[8]

Voyager was cancelled in the spring of 1997, after 18 months in production.[2][9] According to Looking Glass's Paul Neurath, the cancellation was due to Viacom's wider decision to abandon the video game industry. He believed that the Viacom deal and Voyager were ultimately a "giant distraction" and a "boondoggle" that hurt the company.[10] These events started a financial downward spiral at Looking Glass, which, compounded by a string of troubled and commercially unsuccessful projects such as Terra Nova and British Open Championship Golf, culminated in the company's closure in May 2000.[7][11] Three members of the Voyager team—Chey, writer Ken Levine and designer Rob Fermier—became close friends during the game's development.[12][13] The game's cancellation inspired them to start the spin-off developer Irrational Games in April 1997,[2][9] which went on to develop System Shock 2 in collaboration with Looking Glass.[14] Levine later recalled that, while writing Voyager's opening cutscene, he learned that technological limitations made it difficult for characters to express emotion; and this experience influenced his future writing for games such as BioShock Infinite.[13]

Notes

  1. ^
    PC Gamer US
    . 3 (9): 64, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75, 76, 78.
  2. ^
    Gamasutra. Archived from the original
    on March 24, 2008. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  3. ^ a b Staff (August 16, 1995). "Viacom New Media forms a strategic alliance with Looking Glass Technologies, creator of groundbreaking interactive products; Viacom New Media and Looking Glass join forces on STAR TREK: VOYAGER software". Business Wire. Archived from the original on September 4, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2017 – via The Free Library.
  4. ^ "The Next Generation?". Next Generation (11). November 1995.
  5. ^ V. Sherman, Christopher (November 1995). "Movers & Shakers; Viacom Pulls Out Its Wallet". Next Generation (11).
  6. ^ Staff (December 28, 1996). "'Star Trek' fans can battle the Borg at home". The Augusta Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 2, 2014. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  7. ^ a b Mahardy, Mike (April 6, 2015). "Ahead of Its Time: The History of Looking Glass". Polygon. Archived from the original on April 7, 2015.
  8. ^ Staff (June 8, 1996). "E3 Adventure & Role Playing Games". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Archived from the original on June 14, 1997. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  9. ^ a b Cross, Jason (March 9, 2001). "An Irrational Tale". Computer Games Magazine. Archived from the original on February 6, 2005.
  10. ^ Weise, Matthew (March 4, 2012). "Looking Glass Studios Interview Series - Audio Podcast 10 - Paul Neurath". Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013.
  11. ^ Sterrett, James (May 31, 2000). "Reasons for the Fall: A Post-Mortem On Looking Glass Studios". Through the Looking Glass. Archived from the original on March 8, 2014.
  12. ^ Plante, Chris (January 10, 2013). "Ken Levine and the Infinite Idaho". Polygon. Archived from the original on February 18, 2013. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  13. ^
    Gamasutra. Archived from the original
    on January 4, 2014. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
  14. RPGVault. Archived from the original
    on March 8, 2004. Retrieved February 23, 2014.
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