Star Trek 25th Anniversary
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Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is a computer game by Interplay, based upon the Star Trek universe.
The game chronicles several various missions of James T. Kirk and his crew of the Enterprise.
Computer games based on the Star Trek television series had been for the most part dull and lifeless, nor paticularly good sellers. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary was the first critical and popular hit, and helped expand the Star Trek franchise throughout computer gaming. It was an odd combination of flight simulator and adventure game. Space combat involved manuevering the Enterprise and firing her weapons at enemy starships, not unlike most fighter-plane simulators. The chief variation was that the player could assign Scotty to repair the ships systems, concentrating on propping up the shields, restoring weapons to functioning status, or even fixing the scanners so the main screen wouldn't show static.
The adventure side involved two innovations that differed from most adventure games of the time. The first was that instead of telling one long story, the game was broken down into several "episodes", reminiscent of an actual Star Trek television season (the game was set as "the lost fourth season"). The second was more in the nature of adventure games in general: for simplicity's sake, graphic adventures usually had the player only controlling one character. However, rarely did the television series have only one character "beam down" to a planet, and the designers stayed with that, putting as many as four player-controlled character on the screen at once, adding richness to player choices.
The adventure team consisted of the series' main characters, Captain James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy, with an occasional - and expendable! - "red-shirted" security officer (not unlike the actual series). Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov would have to wait for new animations in the sequel, Star Trek: Judgment Rites, to appear on the "away" missions. Getting the Enterprise destroyed or one of the continuing characters killed led to the game end, and the player would have to start again from their last saved game. This was mandated by Paramount, who had final approval rights to the game's contents.
The original cast of Star Trek provided the voices on the CD version, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nicols, and Walter Koenig. The game itself was designed by Jayesh Patel, Bruce Schlickbernd, Michael A. Stackpole, and Elizabeth Danforth.