Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

1001 Video Games

The PC version of Star Trek: 25th Anniversary appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Copy protection

The game used a star map as a copy protection scheme. Without the manual, you could not navigate to the next mission.

Install time

The game was rather infamous in its day for having the most excrutiatingly long install process imaginable, despite being on only five 5.25" hd disks (resp. eight of type 3.5" dd). Average install times ran around 90 minutes. In addition, the sequel, Star Trek: Judgment Rites, had a very long install time also, at least 90 minutes, because as well as copying the data from several floppies, it had to decompress the data on the hard drive up to three times. The data files were compressed multiple times using ARJ and Sonarc was used for audio files (on top of ARJ compression). All this was very slow on PCs back then.

Manual

The manual had a rather silly error in their epileptics warning message: Avoid playing when tired. Play for no more than one hour at a time. Sit well away from the screen, preferably no closer than ten feet.

Music

Interplay faithfully reproduced several music themes from the TV show. The game is configurable to play with several sound cards and even supported General Midi.

Releases

The game was rereleased in a "talkie" CD-ROM after they became the norm. Interplay went the extra mile and reassembled the entire original crew for the production.

References

With the possible exception of Ensign Kije, all of the so-called "redshirts" in this game are named after members of the development team. By episode, they are as follows:* Ensign Everts ("Demon World"), * Lt. Christensen and Crewman Simpson ("Hijacked"), * Lt. Ferris ("Love's Labor Jeopardized"), * Lt. Buchert ("Another Fine Mess"), * Lt. Stragey and Ensign Bennie ("Feathered Serpent"), * and Ensign Mosher ("That Old Devil Moon").

In the final episode, "Vengeance", if you look at the accompanying Security Officer while on the bridge of the U.S.S. Republic, the message will read: "Ensign Kije, who wishes that Lieutenant Stackpole had drawn this assignment." Michael A. Stackpole is, of course, one of the writers.

Information also contributed by 6⅞ of Nine, EddyB43, Scott Monster, and WizardX