Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: s.j.austin@east-london.ac.uk (Simon Austin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Star Trek 25th Anniversary Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 8 Apr 1994 16:14:41 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 280 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2o3vth$l2j@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: S.J.Austin@east-london.ac.uk (Simon Austin) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, adventure, Star Trek, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Star Trek 25th Anniversary BRIEF DESCRIPTION Take control of Captain Kirk and crew and boldly go where no man has gone before. The aim of this game is to follow in the footsteps of Kirk and Co. and solve strange puzzles, fight implacable foes and never, ever, ever say "Beam me up Scotty." AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Interplay Productions Ltd Address: The Barn St John's Yard Main Road Fyfield Oxon OX13 5LN United Kingdom Telephone: 44 0865 390029 LIST PRICE 34.99 Pounds Sterling. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE AGA Chipset Hard drive 1.5MB free memory SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 3.0 COPY PROTECTION The copy protection for ST25 is very unobtrusive, if it was indeed intended as copy protection. Simply put, in order to travel to your chosen destination, you must choose it from a starchart. Since the starchart in the game itself isn't labelled, you have to refer to the one in the manual, which is. Choosing the wrong destination dumps you into the neutral zone where you are attacked by hoards of Klingons. ST25 installs on a hard drive; in fact, it requires one to run. Copy Protection Rating: "Invisible" (you don't notice it at all). MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200/020, 0 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM. 1 internal 880K floppy. 1 external 880K floppy. 1 external 1.6MB floppy Conner 172MB internal hard drive. Philips CM8833-II monitor. AmigaDOS 3.0. Kickstart 39.106, Workbench 39.29 KingCON version 1.0 replacing the Amiga shell. INSTALLATION According to the manual, to install you should "Change the disk prompt to the drive that your DISK 1 is in by typing 'A:' or 'B:' depending on where your DISK 1 is." Interplay lose a few points for that faux pas. More information is forthcoming if you open the disk 1 icon instead. Inside is the "Star Trek 25th Installer" icon, which when double-clicked opens a shell containing: | If you'd like to install on another disk or drawer, drag the | install icon there, then double click on it. This install | will create a sub-directory called StarTrek in the drawer | where this install icon is located. StarTrek 25th | Anniversary will then be installed therein. | This install will temporarily use 15 megabytes of disk space. | When it is finally installed it will occupy 9 megabytes | Do you wish to continue the install [y/N]? I wasn't too keen on the inference that you could install ST25 on the disks provided. Novices could easily get confused by this. Installation takes a LONG time. You don't have to sit there for ages though: once all eight disks have been read in, you can pop off to make a cup of tea, read a book or watch a film whilst the files are unpacked. REVIEW Once installation is completed, you can run ST25 by clicking on the icon in the StarTrek directory. Or can you? As mentioned above, ST25 requires 1.5MB free RAM to run, although nothing in the documentation tells you this (other than a sticker on the cover saying "AMIGA 1200/4000 2MB RAM"... but since everyone with a 1200/4000 has at least 2MB, it's not much help). If you try to run ST25 with less than 1.5MB, as I did, you can come across a surprising number of different error messages all seemingly designed to confuse, as none of them mention a lack of memory. There are two methods around this if your Workbench takes up more than half a megabyte: a) Boot without the startup-sequence, "cd" to the appropriate directory and run ST25 from there; b) Create a boot floppy which performs a minimal boot but re-assigns everything to the hard disk. I chose the second method and was soon up and running. ST25 starts with a passable version of the program's intro. A recognisable version of the theme plays whilst a jerky Enterprise zips back and forth across the screen. This is strange as it is the only time when the graphics are jerky. During the space battles, your opponent moves smoothly even when the Romulan Warbird fills the whole viewscreen. The game then follows an episodic format, each episode consisting of the following (although not necessarily in this order): 1) Get your orders from Starfleet; 2) Fly to your destination; 3) Fight a spacebattle with your enemy; 4) Beam down to planet/spaceship; 5) Solve the problem; 6) Short scene on the bridge where Bones and Spock argue. The game is fully mouse controlled, with the keyboard used only sparingly. During space battles, you have to flick from the viewscreen (where you control the ship's direction and phasers/photon torpedoes) to the bridge itself (where you click on the crew members to change damage control [Scotty], get information [Spock] or whatever). Once you have beaten your opponent and arrived at your destination, you'll normally use Uhura to open hailing frequencies to find out what to do next. Asking Spock for help is always a good idea, and eventually you'll want to beam down with a landing party. The landing party always consists of Kirk, Bones, Spock and an Ensign (whose name is given, but doesn't really matter since he's almost guaranteed to be sucked/slimed/electrocuted/shot as soon as possible). Of the landing party, you directly control only Kirk: the other three members will follow you around but have to be told what to do. You can ask the others for advice at any time, and it is probably best to do this on entering any new location. Commands are given using the mouse: left button to choose, right to bring up icons for talk, look, take, use, and save/load/quit. Once carried, objects can be used on other items within your location or other objects carried. Be careful though. I spent ages trying to use two objects together and unwittingly kept using the first object on the wrong second object. The game never told me "this doesn't work," and it wasn't until I realised which was the correct object to use that I could complete the episode. Very frustrating. Sometimes battles occur in episodes and these may seem one-sided at first - only Kirk ever draws his gun. But it soon turns out that you have two advantages - firstly your opponents are *very* slow, and secondly they always shoot the Ensign first! Puzzles whilst "on planet" are mainly of the "find the item, stick it in the right machine, take it to the right place" variety, but there are often clues around to point you in the right direction. You also can have conversations with other characters, and with non-crew members you'll have to make a choice from several phrases. The wrong phrase may have nasty results. Say the wrong thing to the pirates, and they start killing off their hostages. Once you've solved all the puzzles, it's back to the Enterprise for that final scene on the Bridge where Kirk, Spock and Bones have their usual conversation and either Bones or Spock attempts to put the other down. At this point, Starfleet awards points according to how well you did in the episode. Then it's on to the next one.... DOCUMENTATION The documentation consists of the 12 page IBM compatible manual with a new cover proclaiming it is for the Amiga 1200 - English. The manual does cover every aspect of the game although in a vague sort of way. For example, it details all keypresses when there is a mouse equivalent available, but the one time there is only a single key to press (the Tab key to move from viewscreen to bridge) it is not mentioned. Strangely enough, the manual's writer actually admits so in the credits section. Bruce Schlickbernd, you're a brave man. LIKES The best thing about this game is that it sticks closely to the actual programme itself. With Star Trek in general being action oriented, many vendors with this licence would have perhaps gone for a platform or shoot-em-up game. Interplay have not done this, and more power to them. The in-space graphics are impressive: when you get in close to the Romulan Warbird and see the designs painted on it, you could almost forget to fire your phasers. The puzzles are logical (Captain), and the episodic nature allows you to progress through the game in nicely measured doses ("I'll just finish `Love's Labors Jeopardised' and then I'll eat something"). The graphics in the "on planet" part are recognisable as the crew of the Enterprise, although Bones and Spock have suspiciously similar bodies. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The unfriendly installation and initial startup are nasty. A little thought and judicious use of Commodore's installer wouldn't go amiss. A kinder method of making choices would be better. Having to cycle through six or seven different choices before selecting one is laborious. Also, there is a tendency for the game to move your mouse pointer from where you want it as messages appear on the screen, and the game doesn't always put the pointer back. Speaking of the mouse pointer, it is sometimes a little jerky, but I think some fast RAM or an accelerator would solve this problem. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS As far as point-and-click adventures go, ST25 is quite well up the list. There are not a vast number of commands to be used, but this works in the game's favour - the commands are easy to learn and pretty much cover everything you'd want to do. On the space-flight simulator front, it's not the most realistic nor the best ever. The texture mapping is nice, but as always a purely aesthetic advantage. However, it works and the battles are fairly even. BUGS Other than the installation problems and a few unexplained gurus early on (which haven't re-occurred), I haven't discovered any bugs. This is probably due to the effect of having the program previously available on other formats. VENDOR SUPPORT I sent off the registration card, but I haven't heard anything from Interplay, nor do I expect to. I mean, I only bought their product: why should I think that would give me anything more than somebody who pirated the thing? WARRANTY Within 90 days, you should return the game to the retailer. Beyond that Interplay offer an implied lifetime warranty for anything other than normal wear and tear. Replacements cost 10 pounds sterling (for postage and packing [I hope its well packed then]) and you'll need to send back your retailer receipt as well. CONCLUSIONS Star Trek fans will definitely enjoy this, and adventure fans probably will too. A little amount of Amiga knowledge is useful, as is some Fast RAM to smooth out that jerky mouse pointer. Remember, if this one sells well, Interplay may produce more Amiga stuff, and since they have just been bought by Universal it could be interesting..... -- +-------------------+--------------------------------------------+ | Simon Austin | "Never get in an arse kicking contest with | | University of // | a porcupine." - Cohen the Barbarian | | East London \X/ | "I can love my fellow man, but I'm damned | | austins@uel.ac.uk | if I'll love yours." - Andrew Eldritch | +-------------------+--------------------------------------------+ --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews