Gameplay
The game tries to combine many computer game genres in one, not distancing from the main non-linear philosophy of alternate paths to complete the game, followed in other Star Trek games.
The major portion of the game occurs in Stellar Cartography (also appearing in the film, although only for some minutes) where the player plans their next moves, the main opponents being time and Soran. This part of the game includes the strategic part where the player has to calculate and guess where Soran could be, in order to travel there and stop him before he destroys the system.
The main gameplay is when a crew member beams to a planet or space station where the game switches to first-person action/adventure. The main objective of every away mission is finding and fighting with Soran, who beams seconds before being killed by the player. The mission is then successful; however, not all away missions need to be succeeded to win the game.
Some enemy ships can also be encountered while in space. The game then switches to pure tactical/simulator where the player will control the Enterprise against the enemy ship(s). The fighting system is simplified and improved over the extremely difficult tactical part of A Final Unity.
When the game was originally developed for the Sony PlayStation (PSX), the design was still incomplete and the game programmer, Brett Butler, in Austin, Tx had to work with the publisher on game design and write scripts for the cast to record for use in the title.
Read more about this topic: Star Trek Generations (video game)