Planet Bob - Playing Star Trek - Rebel Universe (C64)

RSS Bot · October 3, 2008

Hi there!

Yay, I'm on a 5 year mission!

This one took quite some time of preparation. First there's a 50 page manual plus some C64 addendum to read, then there's a "Training Flight" to perform next. Once you're through that, you're rewarded with full control over the original enterprise and crew though, so it's really worth it.

The game was originally written for the Atari ST in 1987, featuring a really advanced (at the time) full mouse controlled GUI. I think it was even the first 16-Bit game offering that. The C64 version (which was released an endless 2 years later :ponder: ) just adopted this interface for the joystick, which is still okay.

The graphics are mostly substandard for the C64, as well as sound and music, but still functional. Main limiting factor was memory I guess, since for some reason the programmers decided to make it a single load. Of course it plays pretty fast because of that, I visited over 35 star systems during the last 3-4 hours.

This must've been the absolute Trekkies dream coming true back in the day I assume. You're exploring the mysteries of a "Quarantine Zone" full of ~500 star systems. Everything is there: Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Photon Torpedos, Beaming, Planetary missions, Phasers, Klingons, Romulans, Space Flight...

It's not a 3D Space flight simulator though. Flying around is more the iconic map thing à la Starflight. And the Planetary Missions are more or less just multiple choice encounters. There's a lot more adventurous scavenger hunt than action.

Still, it's breathing Star Trek atmosphere on every screen

Tonight I was just warming up with the game. Trying to get familiar with all the menu screens and just leisurely flying around. I collected a few objects in the planetary missions and tried to figure out what was wrong with them Klingons and how to defeat their evil plans.

Greetings,

Manuel

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=5336