Back when Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown was announced, we knocked it for offering zappy muzak in place of the TV show’s official theme. Gamexcite and Daedalic have added the theme, now, and I sort of wish they hadn’t. “Help!” I screeched to my bedroom walls, as the rousingly sorrowful opening bars wafted from the speakers like nitrous oxide. “A videogame is making me feel something! It is making me feel like 31 years have passed, and I can still remember Neelix getting drunk on water. I still remember the Doctor’s first words. I still remember blowing up the Caretaker Array rather than using it to insta-warp home.”

You can choose not to blow up the Caretaker Array in Across the Unknown, but I was too chickenshit to witness the consequences of leaving such a device in the hands of the bullying, bouffanted Kazon. That’s not what Janeway would have done, and while Across the Unknown’s Janeway has a certain demon Botox energy, she looks the part closely enough to command my loyalty. Let us go forth, Captain! There’s coffee out there in these nebulae.

We were a Star Trek/Buffy/Simpsons household back in the 90s, tuning in at 6pm sharp after school to get our fill of phasers, Spike and Moleman, save for those days when the Beeb would stiff us with an episode of Neighbors. While the spectacle of Voyager sliding over gas giant rings remains pristine in my mind, there are definitely a few bits I’ve forgotten.

For example, I don’t remember Voyager spending this much time hurrying between planets to stock up on Deuterium for the warp engine. I don’t remember the crew losing faith in you if you fail to build a new storage room in time. These are the managerial intricacies they edit out of 30 minute TV episodes, but thanks to the magic of videogames, the one true artform, we are free to sign in exasperation because we can no longer research a new transponder amplifier after running out of juice. Fortunately, power-outs don’t (so far) interfere with your ability to move around and gather resources.

I also don’t remember Tom Paris looking this avuncular. Whatever star fitfully smiled upon the conception of this game’s Janeway smirked in contempt when Daedalic gave flesh to nu-Paris. He’s so… sturdy! He still talks like the old Paris, though, which is to say, like a snarky little flyboy, and he’s fared better than Kes, who looks like she’s been dunked in custard. In general, the script approximately matches my memories of the old cast, though it’s a sparser creation with no voice-acting, carried along by dialogue choices that sort of usher you through old plotlines, while occasionally giving you the chance to deviate from canon. I haven’t done much deviating so far, unless you count sabotaging morale by failing to open a new locker room within 30 cycles.

Across the Unknown divides your labours as follows. Firstly, you click to scan and move Voyager around procedurally generated star systems, with time paused until you set a course. Secondly, you manage the ship’s interior, a cutaway dollhouse simulation akin to latter-day XCOM base management, with rooms and systems to clear and build according to a resource budget. Thirdly, you send people with different skillsets off on away missions that consist of a series of Choose Your Own Adventure challenges. Fourthly, you autobattle with 3D spaceships, giving Voyager orders that reflect the state of your shields, hull and critical systems, while performing crew special abilities with a cooldown.

After an hour mostly spent in the prologue, I wouldn’t call any of this mindblowing. It’s a bog-standard Holodeck recreation of bits of other games. It also makes me newly sad that we’ll never get to play the finished version of Jumplight Odyssey. Still, Across The Unknown doesn’t have any obvious major problems, as yet, and if your memories of the show are copious yet fading, the Proustian euphoria of recognising the specific arrangement of command chairs on the Voyager bridge may convince you to forgive the straightforward moving parts. Star Trek: Voyager – Across The Unknown is out today on Steam. The demo’s still live if you fancy it.