So the conversation we had not long ago about Jim Maher and his usual revisionism (this time on Ultima 8) reminded me of his horrendously shitty revisionist retrospective of the old Simon & Schuster Star Trek games of the 80s. He outright makes shit up to make them look worse, which is weird because I didn't remember them being particularly good to begin with and so it should be easy enough to pan them for what they really are. The funniest bit was that for some reason he was absolutely intent on making S&S be liars, so in order to do that... he lied about one element of the box, in order to claim that S&S were lying about it... so I decided to go back and replay them and find out for myself what they're worth.
Anyway, microreviews of some of the games follows. This did get me on a Star Trek gaming roll so expect more to follow in the future.
The Kobayashi Alternative (1985-1987)
This is the one that started it all, and it did not start well.
The concept of the game was fascinating (remember, this was 1985). You visited different planets, gathered clues that helped you find other planets or specific coordinates on a particular planet, the game was almost completely nonlinear, it was possible to mess up and lock out some clues, but some of the info could be obtained multiple ways, and you didn't need ALL the clues to win... there was so much potential in there.
Unfortunately the game itself was a chore. The UI was a laudable attempt at doing something different: unlike usual IF, what you type is what you're actually saying, or ordering others to do; actually doing stuff (getting and using items, examining things) is done with function keys. But the functions were so limited that the puzzles were either stupid easy or just plain stupid, and the parser was pretty bad, so bad in fact that the manual actually listed the very small number of sentences it'd actually recognize. Planets were reproduced in their almost entirety and you could actually walk or beam around the entire surface, but there was no exploration to speak of, and practically if you didn't have the coordinates you needed there was no point in any of the wilderness (kinda like Daggerfall). The overarching story could've worked out really well if it fit better, but as it is most of the major plot points come out of nowhere at the end (though some of the foreshadowing along the way, as well as the individual planet stories, can be quite cool)
The worst problem was that the initial release was so buggy it was virtually unplayable. S&S spent more than a year patching the game, and even that was still full of bugs. The DOS v1.1 can at least be completed, but so many scripts are bugged that some puzzle solutions make no sense, some things you do don't reward you the way they're supposed to, and huge chunks of content simply do not work other than window dressing (there's like ONE deck on the Enterprise, of the 23 you can explore, that has any relevance to anything)
It's hard to recommend this one. If you like the idea of playing Kirk, typing out "Ahead warp factor 4" or "Kirk to Scotty" or "Bones, tricorder readings", beaming down to explore planets and help the locals with their problems, then beam back up and blast some Klingon ships, then you might get some enjoyment out of it. The problem is that the concept and idea of what you're doing is a lot more fun than the actual moment to moment gameplay.
Be sure to stick to DOS v1.1, the older version is even buggier; avoid both Apple versions as they have bugs along the critical path.
First Contact (1988)
No, this has nothing to do with the movie, and predates it by years.
Same developer as the previous one, same weird interface, but MUCH more polished, and the interface is used much better here. No endless trudging around empty planets, no real bugs (although, be careful when you save your game; do so only when it doesn't seem like you're in the middle of a scripted sequence). The puzzles are still not great (and some seem to almost solve themselves), the story tries to go with multiple threads but they don't quite come together in a satisfactory way; though the end game is quite good and reminded me of the one used much later for Judgment Rites.
Better than the first, but it also loses a lot of the interesting aspects and is much more traditional (maybe that's a good thing? I'm not sure either way)
The Promethean Prophecy (1986)
Looks superficially like the others, but it's a completely different engine and developer.
This one is a an almost purely traditional text adventure without any of the experimental trappings. Barring one annoying timed sequence, and a chronic (but quite rare) get-to-shelter alarm, it's also much more relaxed in pacing. Most of the game involves beaming down to a planet, making contact with the civilization there, then trying to piece together what is going on and what this civilization really is (they've forgotten that too). Puzzles are mostly logical, though some require actually immersing yourself in the civilization's logic (team members' comments help with this). The mystery is quite fun to unravel one layer at a time, and I thought the ending was quite satisfying and brings together lots of things you'd been doing throughout the game.
It's not the best IF but it's a good one, and of the 3 games here I think it's the best one.
