Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

The Good
Alright. In actuality, I am not a Trekkie. I do enjoy the show, particularly the original, Next Generation, and Voyager, a good bit. I'm sorry, but DS9 just doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, obviously people who go to conventions dressed as Klingons (and moreover bother to learn the language) would find just about any Trek game satisfying. But this is truly Gaming Goodness (to use the PC Gamer terminology) and I wouldn't doubt that almost any person who enjoys adventure gaming would enjoy this program. Even if there were no Star Trek legacy behind it, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is a great play.

First off, the quality is evident everywhere. The graphics, sound, and voice-acting are all top-notch for the era. No skimping here, people. The environments look like you would expect to see in the original Trek. Only better, thanks to computer graphics. Then the voice acting seems to be done by at least some of the original actors, as it is authentic as these things come. No flatness, almost no awkwardness. It's, for the most part, natural and believable. Combined with the dialogue, which is usually well written (there are campy moments from time to time), the speech in the game serves to bring you into it and keep you there.

Plots are vintage Star Trek. And, after all, isn't one of the things which kept us coming back to the TV series the great, often bizaare plotlines? It probably wasn't the female crew in short skirts. Or was it? Be that as it may, the plotlines here are great for the most part. Without repeating stale plotlines from the show, 25th Anniversary succeeds in bringing the best of the show's feel and blending it with good puzzles to create excellent game content.

Finally, there is actually replayability here. What?? In an adventure game?? Yes! After each mission, you are presented with a rating that tells you how well you did at completing your tasks in the best Star Fleet tradition (yes, that does usually mean non-violence). Not only are you here to solve puzzles, but, in like a good Star Fleet officer, you are a diplomat and explorer as well. So don't miss out any chance to make a good impression on the other beings that you meet throughout the game. This ratings system is where the replayability comes in. There is alot of motivation to come back and see what you might have done differently for a better score.

The Bad
At times the music was rather annoying, despite it being good on the whole.

Also, the game is rather short. Especially if you like it as much as me. Why can't they make more like this?

And finally, there were a couple places where you could get stuck because you missed something in a previous area (like the ship).

The Bottom Line
If you like adventure gaming, this one's one of the best in the business. In my opinion, it stands with such classics as Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island.

The Good
When I was maybe ten years old, give or take a year or two, after saving up money from Christmas and my birthday, I convinced my dad to take me to Best Buy. Buying video games use to be much cooler than it is now; it use to be that you could walk into Best Buy or Toys R Us and see dozens of titles, even if it was just the covers. So looking around for something that I wanted to spend my money on, I happened to see this game called Star Trek 25th Anniversary on cd.

Well, since I already liked Star Trek, even at my young age, and since it featured the voices of the original cast, something my dad also found appealing, I decided to buy this game. And I played the heck out of it...

This is probably one of the few Star Trek games that developers manage to get right. Throughout the course of the game, you are primarily in control of Captain Kirk, either on foot or commanding the Starship Enterprise ("no bloody A, B..."). The game is divided into two segments: on foot away missions, and ship battles.

The game contains numerous "Episodes", that when played together actually hold a surprising well down story arc. On foot missions range from rescuing a derelict Starfleet vessel, being held on trial on the Klingon homeworld, meeting an ancient Aztec "god", and even an adventure involving Harry Mudd from the Original Series on television!

The ship battles are surprising well done also, and vary in difficulty. While in command as Kirk, you can order Uhuru to hail other ships, Spock to scan them, and even assign different divisions of the ship for Scotty to fix. Ship battles are not random, they only occur if you go to star systems you are not supposed to go to (Klingon, Romulan Neutral Zone, etc), but occasionally skirmishes happen during a routine mission.

The Bad
Speaking from nostalgia here, there was very little I didn't like about the game. It was probably the hardest game I played growing up, hard enough that I even wrote the company, Interplay, for a walkthrough. And amazingly, along with a note from somehow high in the corporation ( I want to say the president, but I can't recall) saying they were glad I enjoyed the game, they send me a hand typed walkthrough, as opposed to some cheap factory laminated thing.

So yeah, missions are hard if you are not use to Myst type games, and they are even harder if you want to achieve the best ranking on every mission.

And I never beat the game! The final battle is against an opponent every bit as cunning and as powerful as you are, and there are some conditions you need to uphold in order to beat them, and I could never quite do it.

The Bottom Line
This is one of those games that will probably be unfortunately lost to time. A classic to those who played it and remember it, it is one of those games that needs to be re-released for newer machines to be able to run it smoothly. But if you can find this game and have an older computer to run it, it is one of the best Star Trek games you will ever find, despite it's age. A true classic that, while never appearing on any Top 100 lists, always seems to get a nod or two by people.

The Good
I found a lot of humorous things in the game. It's got very nice artwork on the bridge and away missions, as well as puzzles that may take weeks to figure out, while not being particularly frustrating or tedious to work with once you figure them out.

The Bad
The only real problem is the poor quality graphics and sound, which you really can't blame it for considering when it was made. Also, it is a little hard--I'm still stuck ;).

The Bottom Line
This is an old, humorous game based on the original Star Trek series. It involves some space combat, but mainly focuses on away missions, in which you control Captain Kirk, Spock, Doctor McCoy, and a red-shirted Ensign (who is the only one you can let die.) I think it's a really nice game, if you can stand the graphics. I have this game, so if want to know more, you can e-mail me at: [email protected]