Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

When the bridge of the Enterprise lights up on the Amiga screen and the familiar music sounds from the speaker, the retro player knows exactly where they are sitting down: into the captain's chair of James T. Kirk. Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is a point-and-click adventure that was released for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the series and tries to capture the spirit of the original classic Star Trek series from the sixties, that is, the crew consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and company.

The game is divided into several separate episodes that play like individual installments of a television series. Each mission has its own story, a planet to explore and a problem to solve. Mechanically it stands on two pillars: on classic adventure-style exploration and collecting items during landing party missions on planet surfaces, and on space battles, where from the bridge you command the Enterprise against enemy ships. This combination of two genres was refreshing at the time and gave the game a variety that purely static adventures lacked.

In development terms the title falls into the era when computer adventures were enjoying a golden age and licensed brands were looking for ways to transfer film and television universes into interactive form. Star Trek was ideal material for such a transfer, the episodic structure of the series naturally lent itself to dividing the game into missions and fans longed to sit in the chair that until then had belonged only to William Shatner.

Culturally the game is interesting for how it tries to stay faithful to its source. The dialogue is delivered in the spirit of the series, the characters are drawn as viewers knew them, and the player often has to choose between a diplomatic and a forceful solution, which is a theme that Star Trek itself always liked to explore. The game is thus not just a collection of puzzles but an attempt to tell Trek stories in an interactive form.

The Amiga version benefited from the graphic and sound capabilities of this computer, which at the time was among the most powerful home machines for gaming. For Amiga owners it was a chance to experience Star Trek in a quality that other platforms of the era could hardly match.

Why play: If you have a soft spot for classic Star Trek and point-and-click adventures, this is a rare opportunity to command the Enterprise across episodic adventures.