Not much is known about Brian and Co.'s plans save that they intend to revolutionize the real-time strategy genre in a similar way that Sid Meier's Bruce Shelly did with Microsoft's Age of Empires. The new RTS game Big Huge is working on is unlikely to have anything to do with Sid Meier, however; that much seems to be a given.

(NOTE: Brian Reynolds's (not Sid Meier's) Big Huge Games also consists of Jason Coleman, Tim Train, David Inscore and at least one other person whose name I can't remember at the moment. I'm mentioning these people here because their mothers probably want to see their names in print. Basically from now on we PC journalists are going to only refer to Brian Reynolds when we talk about Big Huge games so I thought just this once I'd mention them).

Activision has announced that Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force has gone gold and will ... sigh... "beam" into stores sometime in the next couple weeks. Elite Force uses the Quake III engine to render the USS Voyager in glorious detail and Seven of Nine with full belzier curves and bump mapping. The game was developed by Raven Software (Soldier of Fortune, Heretic, Hexen) and it's been suggested that one or two Raven employees personally mapped every curve of the corset-wearing nubile young actress so they could get it absolutely right. "Trek fans expect everything to be exactly per spec. This means hull shape, deck modeling and of course every curve of the former Borg beauty," said Raven's porcine Tellerite mascot.

Meanwhile, Simon and Schuster have delayed their barely anticipated DS9 game until early next year and Interplay finally finished their long, long, long delayed Command & Conquer clone, Star Trek: New Worlds. In a world of bad cookie cutter RTS games it's a bad sign when what looks like a cookie cutter RTS game is delayed 9 months.