Star Trek: Bridge Commander

Star Trek: Bridge Commander (2002) puts players in the captain's chair of a single Federation ship and has them command a crew instead of directly operating weapons as in shooters. The game was made by Totally Games, the studio previously behind the acclaimed simulators Star Wars: X-Wing and TIE Fighter, and it carried over their emphasis on tactical, physically plausible combat between capital ships, where a ship's orientation, weapon range, and power distribution between systems all matter. The combat physics model, which accounted for the mass and inertia of ships, was among the most sophisticated in the space simulator genre at the time of release.

Instead of arcade action, Bridge Commander offers a slower, more deliberate pace: the player gives orders to bridge officers, directs the targeting of shields, phasers, and torpedoes, and must react to damage to individual ship systems in real time, from a damaged warp core to a sensor outage. The campaign, featuring the player's own ship, the USS Dauntless, with full voice acting, is fairly short, but the game became famous mainly for its openness to modification — the community around Bridge Commander created hundreds of mods, new ships, and total conversions bringing the game's engine into other sci-fi universes, which kept the game alive for years after release despite being the only entry in its series. The campaign also introduced players to command outside of battle, including conversations with the crew and decisions that affected the course of the mission, an approach to storytelling unusual for Star Trek games of the time.

Why play: Bridge Commander will appeal to players who want to experience the role of a Star Trek captain literally — making decisions on the bridge rather than operating all the weapons at once as in shooters. It's still worth trying today, especially thanks to its extensive mod scene, which significantly expands the base game with new ships, missions, and entire conversions into other sci-fi settings, including popular fan projects.