My first look at Star Trek: 25th Anniversary was a YouTube Let's Play, a long time ago. I forget most of it - even why I watched it. I think I was just interested in seeing what it was about and stuck around when finding out that it was fully voiced by the characters and crew of the USS Enterprise.
Multiple dialogue options voiced by William Shatner in a point and click adventure through space, the final frontier? How could you not be interested in a game that takes its source material and runs with it?
Let's boldly go and find out what it's like to play.
Frustrations
Oh boy. I am struggling with this one. The game begins on the Bridge with a mock battle to get you up to speed with a few of the ship controls. I never saw the enemy ship to even attempt to shoot it, so that was a failed practice that was over in seconds.
After that, we get a mission on a distant planet and set off in search of the right star on the star map. Really tricky when you don't have a map in front of you with the systems written on it, so my first venture through space ended with a bang.
Restarting, failing the mock battle (again), getting the mission (again) and using a guide to go to the correct planet, we finally manage to beam down to the surface with an away team and get on with solving the problem of some Demon's troubling the locals.
While the interface is bordering on awful, it does show off the depth in which this game goes. Multiple lines of dialogue choices allow you to choose what Captain Kirk says to the locals, and unlike games from today, you can see (and hear) exactly what you will say before you commit to saying it, so there's no worry about potentially saying the wrong thing.
That is, however, not enough to save this game...
I moved north to inspect the mines from which these Demons are launching their attacks on the locals and find our friends, the Klingons.
You are given ample time here. It's the slowest shoot-out in history, but a cumbersome interface resulted in a dead away team and an annoyed player.
It was pretty funny, though. Absurd. But not funny enough to get me to try again.
Fun Times
I endeavoured to watch Star Trek: 25th Anniversary instead, and it is worth a look, if not for the entire game then for a single episode.
There are seven episodes which have the crew performing all kinds of missions across the galaxy. Each episode is full of plot, especially if you look up background information on various people and places with the ship's computer or through talking to other crew members.
Again, it's all fully voiced, even by the ship's computer, which must make this game rank highly on any TV or movie tie-in game list, and it certainly makes it a must for Star Trek fans.
Final Word
But for general gamers, I'm not too sure. I fumbled in basically every way that it was possible to fumble, before getting frustrated with it enough to quit playing.
That's mostly on me, but a little has to go onto Star Trek: 25th Anniversary too. The UI is a little strange in places, almost requiring you to have an open manual in front of you to work out what various icons refer to.
If you're willing to push through that, you'll probably love the attention to detail and obvious love of the source material that the developers have put in. If you're not, then at least give it a watch, because there is a decent game here - I've just got to get rid of this red shirt on my back and act a little more like a know-it-all captain...
Fun Facts
The Amiga version of the game required a 9mb install onto a hard drive. It took an hour. And we complain about Day 1 patches taking too long...
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, developed by Interplay Productions, first released in 1992.
Version played: PC, 1992, via emulation.
Version watched: PC, 1992 (World of Longplays)