You can now explore the Enterprise and Train to Fly an Original Series Shuttle Craft in the newly released fan game for PC, created by game studio, Gambit Realm!

Released on the 23rd of August, “Shuttle Flight Training” is the first demo of a freeware product being developed by Gambit Realm, which aims to faithfully recreate the Original Series Enterprise in authentic details using original blueprints as their guidelines – at least that is what developer Paul Weston tells us on the official website for the project!

We wanted every room, every deck, and all the cool control panels, medical beds, phasers, dilithium crystals and antimatter storage pods we could get.

We wanted all the turbolifts and no load time between locations and we wanted to hop in the shuttle and fly by the ship…

The game is being built on the Torque 3D engine which the developers hope will allow them to fufill their vision and we have to say, that after playing the demo, we are tentativly impressed.   The demo includes two locations on the 1701 Enterprise, its Bridge and the main shuttle bay.

Both locations seem to have been re-created very accuratly (though perhaps we would have to get James Cawley to have a play to verify that) and the graphics quality was very high, even on our laptop.

Modelling and Environmental quality seems to have been prioritised right now, over, for example, player animations which we assume will come down the line, however considering that this is a demo, there are several very cool features you can try out, such as flying the shuttlecraft through several training missions (including Maneuvering and Combat).   The controls take a little getting used too, and we assume that they are a work in progress also, but everything we have seen so far is very impressive – you even get a crew that loads up and wander around, including representations of Kirk, Spock, Uhura (hubba hubba), Sulu, Chekov, Scotty and probably a few that we are forgetting!

In addition, the developers have included a LAN capability, meaning that those of you on a Local Area Network, can install the server software and fly combat missions against other members of your network!   This functionality suggest that WAN (Internet) play will be available down the line, perhaps in another version!

All things considered, this is another impressive Star Trek Fan Game to add to your watch list and it is already much further along than some of the other Fan Game projects out there which gives them some extra points in our books!

We are working to line up an interview with the games developers very soon, so if you have any questions you would like to ask, please leave them in the comments thread for this article and we will be sure to ask them!

Until then, download the demo at the games official website, http://gambitrealm.com/index.php?ID=4&Lang=En

Star Trek: Freelance which was slated to be an up and coming RPG style modification for Elite Force has announced that they are changing their project.   Instead of being a modification, Freelance is now slated to be a stand alone fan game with its own engine and more!

Hailing Frequency originally reported on Freelance back in Janruary 2010 (see original article here) and in Episode 74 of our podcast, we interview the lead programmer for the mod, Griffin Endurance.

Since that time, the team behind the project decided that the limitations of the Elite Force Engine were simply too great, and have therefore decided to branch out onto a new engine and become a fully featured fan game.

On their website they said:

After careful thought from all of us here at Star Trek : Freelance, we have decided to create an engine specifically for the game. As a result it will no longer be a modification for the original Elite Force game created by Raven Software. Below are some images of the Archer Class Bridge that have been successfully ported over to our new graphics engine IrrLicht.

IrrLicht is an open source graphics engine which supports DX9, “instead of EF’s original DX7″ and some advanced features such as dynamic lighting, bump mapping and higher model complexity. It might take some time before we are able to fully integrate what we have in EF into the new engine, and we will need to code all of the existing features and game play from the original game into IrrLicht.

We will be attempting to bring in some more people to help with this transference. This creates an exciting opportunity for Freelance and the future players. We will if course keep everyone informed of our progress, but expect a drop in visual media over the next few months while we focus on the code.

Several screenshots we’re released with the annoucement, demonstrating the new engine’s suprerior graphics capability – here are those shots along with a couple of older ones for comparison:

(Older Screenshot from Elite Force)

For more information on Freelance, visit the official website at www.stfreelance.com and keep those browsers trained to Hailing Frequency for more news on this fan game soon!

Over the weekend, we at STO-Radio/Hailing Frequency sat down with Star Trek Online’s new Executive Producer to talk about his new position and ask a whole bunch of questions that were sent in by the community.

The interview weighs in at 30 minutes and reveals a tonne of cool information as well as providing answers to some of the communities top questions.

You can listen to the audio interview by downloading the MP3 – http://shows.hailingfrequency.com/HF-SE-11072010.mp3

We hope you enjoy the interview!