Some years ago I worked on the DS9 game done by Playmates for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. While I was working on that I was asked to come up with another Trek game pitch to run by Paramount. The idea I hit on was to do a game set during the Earth-Romulan War. The game pitch was called "Bird of Prey". It was a neat game, with a suyrprisiongly Trek like attitude towards warfare (you got a better ranking for ending the war as quickly as possible with minimal causualities on both sides), but Paramount's licensing dept. didn't want to go there, so I shelved it.
I was digging through some files the other day and found some of the concept art I'd done for the game. Linked below at two pieces:
The latter has a funny history. I had seen the Greg Jein built hypothetical Romulan vessel seen in the Chronology book, and set about designing a smaller ship that would appear related. I ran my sketches by Ent-D and Warbird designer Andy Probert (he's a buddy) and his first comment was "that would make a better fighter than a starship". He was right. I scaled it down and voila, coolness was born.
I've got a lot more stuff from this design in my file folders.
[ May 31, 2001: Message edited by: mrneutron ]
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
posted
Oh man, that is a sweet design of the Shrike. If you have more of your starships, I for one would love to see them!
-------------------- "The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity´s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something." Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Very interesting! Please show us more!! I've done a bit of Romulan War stuff myself, so I'd like to see what you came up with for the big ships.
-------------------- When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Thanks for the feedback. I'll see what else I can dig up. I think I have some b&w mockup screens for the game somewhere, as well as some sketches for uniforms, etc.
As to the communicators being Matrix-like, they pre-date said Matrix by at least 5 years.
I seem to have lost a few of the data files, inlcuding one which compared various UESPA and Romulan vessels. I may have a printout somewhere, but I'll have to look around.
And, yes, I AM still in the game industry. The last published video game I worked on was Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future, which shipped for the Sega Dreamcast last year. And, if you find yourself playing Tetris on a Motorola or Siemen's cell phone later this year, I worked on those as well. hee hee
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Those Nokia fossils!? Are you serious? I only knew one person that ever had one - large, awquard and not as cool when you haven't shades, a black leather trenchcoat, 2 MPKs, 2 Micro Uzis, 2 Czech Model 28s, about 6 handguns and big boots.
IMNSHO.
-------------------- I have a dream that this nation will lay down that boogie and play that funky music till we die. So let freedom ring from the Hollywood sign in Tinseltown. Let freedom ring from the Sears Tower in the Windy City. Let freedom ring from Lady Liberty, that fine piece of ass up in Gotham. Let freedom ring from the neon desert of Sin City. Let freedom ring from the French Quarter in the Big Easy. When we let freedom ring from every ghetto and every slum, every 'burb and every 'hood, we will be able to speed up that day when all children of the atom, mutants and non-mutants, the old school and the new wave, SuperFriends and the Power Puff Girls, will join hands and sing in the words of that James Brown classic: "He ain't no drag--Papa's got a brand new bag! Ungh! Good God!" -- Tatsuya Ishida, President, CEO and Revolutionary.
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My kid brother is specializing in a different field of weird obsessions than I am - he knows more about Nokia phones than is healthy for a sane person. He always gets a kick out of these movie phones (which surprisingly often tend to be Nokias or Ericssons - don't Siemens or Motorola believe in product placement?) because in a typical case, they are pure unadulterated fakes.
What requirements does a movie mobile phone have to meet? It has to be very bulky so that the viewers can see it in the character's hand. It has to have one of those antique 10-cm pull-out antennas so that the viewers can still see the phone when it's pressed against the ear of the character. And it has to have a preferably spring-loaded fliptop to look futuristic. No Nokia phone for the last three-four years has had these features. (While some have fliptops, they aren't spring-loaded because such things only misfire in your pocket...)
Similar requirements would drive communicator development for Star Trek, BTW. Subcutaneous implants would be more logical than big clumsy electric razor lookalikes, but people tapping their ears to dial would look too silly.
posted
Remember Imzadi? 'Commodore' Data's communicator was subcutaneous. Apparently it could even pick up on thoughts, and so could be used silently if desired. He said something about them being stadard issue, though don't ask me how it was adapted for an android. Confirmation, anyone?
Registered: Dec 2000
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