Star Fleet I: The War Begins!

The Good
Very addicting. Requires strategy and planning in advance. More sofisticated and complex than any of the many Star Trek games I have played. (I have been playing them since early 1980 when I got my Apple ][ and have seen a wide variety of these games.) I would rank this game 10 out of a possible 10 for this type of game. I was first introduced to this game in 1985 where I worked. We had many IBM PC computers in our department and many people got addicted to it. The original diskette got passed around from place to place and was installed on many PC's with many user's scores and rankings.

The Bad
There is one award that no one seems to have ever gotten. I have tried many different ways to get it. It may be a bug in the game. Other than this minor fault, there is nothing that I don't like about the game.

The Bottom Line
The best Star Trek game ever made.

The Good
Lots of things to control, like navigation, sensors, weapons, security, boarding party, tractor, and more. Simple and clean interface (it's text, of course!)

The Bad
Extremely repetitive. All you do EVER is to "kill enough enemy ships before the time runs out". Warp into quadrant. Cruise the sectors until you locate starbase, killing the odd enemy along the way. Refuel (recharge), go out and shoot a few more enemies until your energy runs low, go back for recharge, repeat until time runs out or you killed all enemies. You'd be bored to death before you finish!

The Bottom Line
Star Fleet 1 is a straight adaptation of the mainframe "startrek" game with many enhancements (such as color and so on) where you must clear the "quadrant" of enemy presence, with limit starbase(s) available for resupply and limited amount of supplies you can carry.

The game is essentially luck and resource management, as you do not know where the starbase is when you enter the quadrant. You must locate the starbase yourself by cruising around, and hopefully not to be overwhelmed by enemy ships before then. Once you resupplied, you go out on hunting expeditions to take down more enemy ships, go back for more supplies, and hopefully reach your "quota" of kills before time runs out.

The game is heavily depedent on luck as your sensor range is limited and you do not know what lies beyond a certain distance, making long-range/high-speed travel dicey. Finding the starbase is a matter of dumb luck unless enemies are already attacking the starbase (in which case it'll declare a mayday). On higher levels you're limited to a SINGLE starbase, so either you find it first or you will lose. As your energy won't regenerate, you must carefully ration your energy before you need a recharge, and maintain a reserve for contingencies. Energy use is also highly random, as enemy ships cause random amount of damage, you cause random amount of damage on them (so a 150 pt phaser blast may or may not kill the enemy ship depending on distance and any "evasive manuevers"). Even torpedoes can miss, and you carry limited number of those.

Star Fleet 1 adds security, saboteurs, boarding party, and tractor beam. You can now capture enemy ships (worth 2 kills) but you also have to deal with saboteurs who wants to damage your ship. While another set of objectives is welcome, it's also highly random and simply another set of things to do instead of giving you a true set of command experience.

All in all, it's rather nostalgic, but if you want a TRUE sense of Star Trek type starship combat, check out Star Fleet Command from Interplay.

The Good
Star Fleet I: The War Begins (SFI) is one of the first (if not THE first) commercially produced "Star Trek" tactics game. Released in '86 by Interstel, the object of the game is simply to protect your sector from the onslaught of the Krellans and the Zaldrons.

You start the game and sign in at the prompt. In fact you also need to supply your password in order to start the game. Multiple players are supported, but on a one mission at time basis. Therefore you need to have your own password so other Commanders can't use your stats to play. Starting in a simulator, you proceed to go on training missions. After successfully completing the training missions, you are given command of an actual ship and go out to battle. In order to get promotions, you need to have a success percentage along with a required number of missions before receiving the promotion.

You patrol the sector, defending your starbases and defeating your enemies. On the lower ranking missions, you have more starbases and a substantial amount of time in order to complete your mission. As you climb through the naval ranks, your number of starbases decreases, the enemy becomes smarter (and deadlier), and your mission time has little leeway.

Failure of your mission has its consequences. If your ship is destroyed (from either enemy fire or self- destruction) it becomes unavailable for play. You can't select the vessel, and neither can anyone else that plays. There is a limited number of ships, and if a lot of people are playing, then it can get difficult.

Successful completion of your missions can result in promotion (which opens up harder missions) and, if your success rating is high enough, medals and honors. So the better you play, you have more bragging rights with your friends :)

The controls are all done by keyboard. Selecting your commands are done using the 1-9 keys along with extra key entries, depending on the command. Plotting your course is done by selecting the degree and the c-factor (i.e., acceleration rate). Each sector is equal to 1.0 c-factors so plotting courses is fairly simple. The same technique is used for plotting torpedo courses.

I find that this game is a breakthrough game for 1986. Previously, this game appeared on mainframe computer thoughout the US and was immensly popular on campuses. Because of the calculations involved in such a game, it wasn't until the PC was released (with its computational abilites), that it was a viable game for commercial release.

The Bad
There is only one thing I find annoying. But before I begin, let me state that the reason being is because of the fact that is a text-based interface.

Configuring your shields is a pain in the butt. The "Graphic" for your ship has the ships bow pointed towards the top of the screen, with the 1st shield on the bow, 2nd on the starboard side, 3rd on the stern, and the 4th on the port side. But the graphic only helps when your ship is oriented in the game to 90 degrees (north). If your ship is oriented in any other direction, it's confusing to figure out how to manipulate your shields.

The Bottom Line
This is a first rate game, which is available to download (as freeware!) at the site in the "Links/Searches" section. If you download it, it works best if install to a bootable floppy disk. Although the graphics are dated, the game shines in it replay value.

As a side note, the authors of the original are working on a Win98 version of the game, soon to be released. If the new version is in anyway like the original in its presentation, gameplay or replay value, it's certain to be a hit.

Final verdict: A fantastic old-school game... Download it and Enjoy :)