Star Trek (arcade game)

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is a space combat simulation arcade game based on the original Star Trek television program and movie series, and released by Sega in 1983.[2][3] It is a vector game, with both a two-dimensional display and a three-dimensional first-person perspective.[4] The player controls the Starship Enterprise and must defend sectors from invading Klingon ships.

Star Trek
Arcade cabinet
Developer(s)Sega
Publisher(s)Sega
Designer(s)Sam Palahnuk
Platform(s)Arcade, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, VIC-20
Release
Genre(s)Space combat simulator
Mode(s)Single-player
Arcade systemSega G80 vector [1]
DisplayColor vector

The game was presented in two styles of cabinets: an upright standup, and a sit-down/semi-enclosed deluxe cabinet with the player's chair modeled after the Star Trek: The Motion Picture's bridge chairs with controls integrated into the chair's arms.

Star Trek was ported to the Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, Atari 8-bit family, Atari 5200, Atari 2600, VIC-20, ColecoVision, and Apple II.

Gameplay

The game makes use of painstakingly synthesized speech, since memory costs at the time made the use of sampled audio almost prohibitive.

Unlike most arcade games of the time, the player is presented with multiple views of the play field. Throughout the game, survival depends on the player's ability to effectively use and manage shield energy, photon torpedoes, and warp energy. These are replenished by docking with starbases, which sometimes must be saved from destruction at the hands of the Klingons.

The control system for Star Trek employed the use of a weighted spinner for ship heading control, while a series of buttons allowed the player to activate the impulse engines, warp engines, phasers, and photon torpedoes. The phaser button was simply marked "fire." The warp button was deliberately placed farther away from the rest of the buttons, in order to force the player to reach for them in heated battle. The sit-down (AKA: environmental) version of the game had convenient location of the warp button at the right hand thumb.

Reception

Electronic Games stated in August 1983 that "Star Trek is sure to be a top-grosser in the arcades this year. If you can squeeze through the crowd around the machine, you may never want to leave."[5]

ANALOG Computing wrote in January 1984 that the Atari 8-bit version "sounds a lot like Star Raiders (a classic worth aspiring to). Purists will shake their heads and say 'The first is always the best,' and in this case I must agree with them", adding that the arcade version was superior. The magazine concluded that "This incarnation of Star Trek probably won't impress a hard-core Atari computer gamer".[6]

About 500 of these machines were given away as part of a promotion for Halfsies cereal in 1982/1983.[7]

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References
  1. System16.com. Game hardware page. Retrieved August 5, 2006.
  2. "Star Trek". The Arcade Flyer Archive. Killer List of Videogames. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
  3. Star Trek at the Killer List of Videogames
  4. Forman, Tracie (August 1983). "Insert Coin Here". Electronic Games. 2 (6): 100.
  5. Kelley, Patrick J. (January 1984). "Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator". ANALOG Computing. p. 30.
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGliODdPFbc
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