Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (PC)

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (PC)
Stardate:	Unknown (Unknown)

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is an adventure/action game for PC, published by Interplay corporation. It was released for the Mac by Macplay.

A basic two-dimensional game, the player assumes the role of the Star Trek: The Original Series away crew – Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and a generic ensign – on several different missions. The gameplay works by selecting a body part the player wishes to use (i.e. lips for speaking, eye for examining, etc.) from the drop-down function box. The player must solve different puzzles and perform special actions within each level, or mission, in order to progress to the next.

This game encompasses much of the Star Trek universe, with missions ranging from starship battles to dealing with Harry Mudd. Each mission is completely stand-alone in terms of plot and puzzles (i.e. items or knowledge from previous missions are not required), simulating the structure of Star Trek episodes. There are a total of seven episodes.

Each mission begins with a brief explanation of the mission either by a message from Starfleet command or Kirk's log entry. All missions have optional things to do and some have alternate solutions leading to very different plot paths. At the end of each mission, Starfleet gives an evaluation of the player's performance on a percentage scale. Some missions may end as a complete failure, but still permit the player to proceed to the next one. The game only ends if the Enterprise is destroyed or someone of the main trio dies; the death of a redshirt results only in a reduction of score.

The game was published on both floppies and CD-ROM. The CD-ROM version adds spoken lines performed by the original cast and expands the last mission, which was by many considered the worst of the lot in the original version.

Background Information

Many missions had a sub-game wherein the player would figure out how to get the redshirt killed, although this would diminish their rating at the end of the mission.

Before arriving at a system, it must be selected from a starchart, with a master copy included in the package. If the wrong system is selected, the Enterprise is often fired upon by whomever is control of that system, usually Romulans, Klingons, or Elasi pirates. In some versions, if by chance one should arrive at a system in a later mission, the user is able to play that mission without completing the previous ones. This did not work for the Mac version, however.

Missions

Note: These describe the most direct ways of completing the mission. There are several side quests which are optional, but will improve the player's rating if they are completed.

1 - Demon World

The game starts with the Enterprise having a simulated battle with the USS Republic. It is not required to win this battle, although it will diminish the player's rating for the mission if they lose. Afterward, the Enterprise is ordered to Pollux V, where a colony of Federation monks has come under attack from what they describe as "demons." Kirk, Spock and McCoy investigate, and are attacked by three Klingons which, on closer inspection turn out to be robots. After repairing the detached hand of one of the robot Klingons, the crew gain access to a complex which houses the planet's former inhabitants, the Nauians, who are suspended in stasis which they entered to survive an encroaching ice age. Kirk assists in shutting down the defense system that is producing the "demons," and the Nauians agree to share the planet with its new occupants (or even ask to join the Federation, depending on how polite Kirk is to the chief Nauian).

• Redshirt Death 1: To gain access to the Nauian complex, the player is required to phaser away a pile of rubble, on top of which a boulder is precariously perched. If the player does not phaser the boulder first, it will fall and the security guard will push Kirk out of the way, but be killed himself.
• Redshirt Death 2: If the player tries to access the Nauian complex without using the robotic hand, the security officer will offer to make the attempt himself, and get a series of increasingly severe electric shocks. On the fourth attempt, the security officer will be vaporized.

2 - Hijacked

The Enterprise is ordered to investigate the disappearance of the USS Masada, and eventually track it to the Beta Myamid system. It transpires that an Elasi pirate named Cereth has taken control of the ship, and threatens to kill its crew unless the Federation releases a list of Elasi criminals currently incarcerated in various locations around the Federation. Kirk and a landing party beam across after lowering the Masada's shields by using its prefix code and release the captive crew (or accidentally kill them all by setting off an Elasi bomb). They gain access to the bridge by either the turbolift or transporter, and can either force Cereth into a peaceful surrender or kill him and his fellow pirates (although the will lose their security officer in the process).

The mission has an alternate ending, which is achieved by saving the Masada crew from the Elasi bomb, and then transporting the bomb onto the bridge, which is subsequently destroyed by the bomb exploding. The Masada immediately goes out of control and crashes into a nearby planet, and everyone on board apart from the Enterprise landing crew dies. The player is subsequently given a score of zero for the mission, and a strong rebuke from Starfleet.

Another alternate ending can be achieved without even beaming over to the Masada, by continually taunting Cereth until he kills off the hostages. This also results in a score of zero.

• Redshirt Death: If the player chooses to start a firefight on the bridge of the Masada, no matter what phaser setting or order the Elasi are shot in, the security officer will be killed in the crossfire.

3 - Love's Labor Jeopardized

A pair of Romulan ships cross the Neutral Zone and attack the research station ARK7, which is under the supervision of Dr. Carol Marcus. The Enterprise is called to assist, and after dealing with one of the Romulan ships, Kirk and a landing party beam across. They quickly discover the reason for the Romulan attack; Marcus and her team accidentally developed a virus called Oroborus, which is deadly to Romulans and Vulcans. Worse still, an accident has resulted in ARK7's atmosphere being contaminated, meaning Spock is now infected and will die unless McCoy can invent a cure. After experimentation, McCoy creates a cure by exposing the Oroborus virus culture to ammonia, and Kirk immobilizes the Romulans with TLTDH, the "Romulan Laughing Gas" which gives them an uncontrollable laughing fit, then knocks them out. McCoy cures the Spock and the Romulans of the Oroborus virus, and the Romulan captain agrees to leave peacefully. Kirk then bids farewell to Carol, wondering if he'll ever see her again...

• Redshirt Death: The security officer can be ordered to try and access the lower decks before the Romulans are knocked out; if this happens though, he will be spotted and instantly killed before he can try and get down the access ladder.

4 - Another Fine Mess

The Enterprise answers a distress call from the Harlequin system, but finds only a pair of Elasi pirate ships, which swiftly attack the Enterprise. After dealing with the Elasi, the Enterprise finds out that the person who sent the distress call was none other than Harry Mudd, who has found a mysterious alien cargo ship and registered it as salvage, and subsequently been selling alien devices to the Elasi. What follows is probably the least eventful mission of the game, as Kirk and his crew explore the alien ship, discover the mysteries behind who built it, and find an ancient weapon system that they can adapt for use on the Enterprise. After fully exploring the ship, the Enterprise leaves Harry, but not before Uhura reveals that she has informed Harry's wife, Stella of his current whereabouts.

There are no redshirt deaths in this mission; the only methods of failure are to either lose the battle against the Elasi pirates at the start of the mission, or fail to repair a malfunctioning life support generator in time.

5 - The Feathered Serpent

Upon hearing that a Klingon task force has crossed the Neutral Zone in pursuit of a fugitive, the Enterprise moves to intercept their fleet in the Digifal system. The Klingons inform Kirk that their fugitive is residing on one of the planets on the system, and agree to let Kirk retrieve him. Upon arriving, Kirk and his party are surprised to meet a man who claims to be the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, and to have undertaken a mission to the nearby Klingon planet of Hrakkour to spread his message of peace and self-sacrifice. Upon hearing Kirk's description of the Aztecs as bloodthirsty savages, Quetzalcoatl becomes angered and transports Kirk and his team into the middle of a series of trials, designed to make them prove their worth. They complete their tests successfully, and Quetzalcoatl acknowledges that whatever humanity's past, they have become a worthy species. He then reveals that the source of his power is an organ not found in humans, and asks that McCoy remove it, so that he may become a mortal. Kirk agrees to this request, and they are beamed back to the Enterprise. However, while Quetzalcoatl is undergoing his operation, Admiral Vlict, commander of the Klingon fleet hails Kirk and demands that Quetzalcoatl be turned over to him. He further reveals that he has destroyed all life on Hrakkour because of the "danger" that Quetzalcoatl's philosophy posed, and to Kirk's dismay, the Organians rule that Kirk must comply, as Quetzalcoatl has interfered in Klingon affairs. Upon arrival at the ruined planet of Hrakkour, Vlict begins what is an obvious show trial, and Kirk intervenes, asking for the right to undertake another series of challenges, and Vlict agrees that the now-mortal Quetzalcoatl can go free if he completes them.

The mission has two distinct endings from here. The first (and best) ending comes when Kirk and his crew find an ancient chamber built by a long-extinct race that previously inhabited Hrakkour. Upon activating the sentient main computer, the computer analyses the minds of everyone on the planet and brings Vlict to the chamber. It pronounces that while Kirk, his crew and Quetzalcoatl are innocent and may go free, Vlict is guilty of genocide against his own people and sentences him to death. At this point, Kirk can either interfere and ask that Vlict's life be spared, or he can simply leave Vlict to his death (which choice the player makes has no bearing on the mission score). Quetzalcoatl is subsequently returned to the Digifal system, to live out the remainder of his life as he sees fit.

The second, worse ending comes if Kirk successfully completes the Klingon challenges and returns to the courtroom. Vlict reneges on his promise, sentences Quetzalcoatl to death anyway and orders Kirk to leave Klingon space. Despite Kirk's attempt to intervene, Quetzalcoatl agrees to sacrifice himself to avoid a potentially devastating war between the Federation and Klingons, and the Enterprise leaves Klingon space, its crew mourning Quetzalcoatl's death.

• Redshirt Death 1: On the first planet in the mission, the player encounters a river which is inhabited by a giant tentacled monster. If the player attempts to cross the bridge without dealing with the monster first, the security officer will volunteer to cross first, but be seized by the monster and eaten. If this death occurs though it will be undone by Quetzalcoatl, who will restore the officer to life out of admiration for his self-sacrifice.
• Redshirt Death 2: If the player goes through the path that leads to the "bad" ending on Hrakkour, one of Vlict's men will beam down and attempt to fatally shoot the party. Unless the player shoots the Klingon as soon as he beams in, the security officer will be killed while Kirk is drawing his phaser.

6 - That Old Devil Moon

Starfleet orders the Enterprise to investigate unusual signals coming from Scythe, the moon of the planet Proxtrey. Proxtrey was formerly a thriving industrial planet, but following a massive nuclear war several centuries previously, has become technologically backward. Kirk and the landing party beam down to Scythe, which they discover houses a missile base which began the previous nuclear war, and has somehow become reactivated and is preparing another nuclear attack on Proxtrey, which this time will probably be enough to wipe out the planet's remaining population. Further investigation reveals that while the primary firing system has been affected by a computer virus (which also briefly attacks the Enterprise) and cannot plot an accurate attack on the planet, the backup system is still working fine and is set to carry out the most devastating possible attack on Proxtrey. The crew figures out how to infect the backup system with the virus as well, ensuring that the last of Scythe's missiles will miss the planet and be pulled into its sun.

This is another mission without any specific red shirt death, and also the only mission with no space battle at all ("The Feathered Serpent" has one, but it is only initiated if Kirk is rude to the Klingons). The only way to fail this mission is to try and destroy either the primary or backup fire controller, resulting in the base launching all its missiles at the Enterprise, which is still defenceless in the wake of the computer virus's effects.

7 - Vengeance (Original version)

The Enterprise receives a distress call from the Republic, and arrives to find its sister ship wrecked and adrift in space, with only two survivors, one of whom dies just as Kirk and the landing party beam on-board. The other is revealed to be Brittany Marata, a former Starfleet Academy classmate of Kirk, who is less severely injured. She claims that it was the Enterprise which attacked the Republic, which Kirk refuses to believe but Spock finds to be verified by the Republic's own computer logs. Kirk and the landing party beam back with their survivor, and go to the Republic's last reported destination, the Federation planet Vardaine. The Enterprise is then intercepted by another Template:ShipClass starship... which also happens to be called the Enterprise! The commander of this Enterprise reveals himself as Dr. Ies Breddell, a former member of the Vardaine ruling council who Kirk previously exposed for corrupt practices. Breddell claims to have gained control of the council now and to be undertaking a program of building replica Constitution class ships, with which Breddell intends to overthrow the Federation.

The resulting final battle, against Breddell's Enterprise (which has superior armaments to the real version) and a pair of Elasi pirate ships is exceptionally difficult, and winning it is generally regarded as a major achievement.

7a - Vengeance (Extended version)

In response to criticisms of the shortness of the original version of the mission, it was remade for the CD release of the game, this time featuring an extended mission on the wrecked Republic instead of just scenes on the bridge and sickbay.

This time, the Enterprise gets a distress call from a trader under attack from Elasi ships, and Kirk orders Scotty to take command and aid the trader. Kirk and the landing party discover that the Republic was supposedly attacked by the Enterprise and then find the injured Marata, who in this version has far more severe injuries and dies shortly afterward, using her final words to accuse Kirk of murdering the Republic's crew. With her crew now entirely lost, Kirk sets about restoring power to the Republic, only for an Elasi ship to arrive as soon as they get the main computer up and running again. They raise the Republic's shields, which are barely functional but prevent the Elasi from beaming over. The Elasi captain then makes the same demand that Cereth made earlier in the game, which Spock quietly notes to Kirk is in fact futile, since the ship's data banks were destroyed in the battle. Kirk agrees to try and find the info anyway, and uses the time available to get the Republic's torpedo bays operational, using the ship's transporter to bypass the hull breaches that have made the bays inaccessible by foot. Just as the Elasi's deadline is running out, Kirk transfers all power to the weapons (forcing them to take the risky move of lowering their shields) and uses two torpedoes to cripple the Elasi ship, and the Enterprise arrives on the scene shortly afterward, forcing the Elasi to flee. The landing party returns to the Enterprise, and from this point the mission proceeds as the original did.

Despite being much longer than the original, the extended version was quite buggy, and sometimes impossible to complete. One such bug would render Spock incapable of realizing that the landing team needed to use the transporter to reach the torpedo bay, meaning that there was no way of completing the mission, which would only end when the Elasi captain became enraged at the crew's failure to meet the deadline and destroyed the Republic completely, resulting in a game over. Another would sometimes occur when the player transferred the Republic's power from the weapons to shields, and resulted in the Elasi pirates instantly beaming aboard and killing all the landing party, before Kirk has a chance to press the torpedo launch button. Despite these bugs, it is usually thought of as being much superior to the original version.

Credits

Cast

Starring

• William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
• Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock
• DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy
• James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
• Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov
• Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura
• George Takei as Hikaru Sulu

Also featuring

• George Almond as Elasi Crewman #1 and Elasi Crewman #2
• Robert V. Barron as Brother Stephen
• Catherine Battistone as Narrator
• Steve Bulen - Elasi Cereth, Lieutenant Ferris, and Captain Patterson
• Anthony De Longis as Federation admiral
• Eddie Frierson as Ensign Everts and Elasi Captain
• Clynell Jackson III as Vlict Kenka
• Joyce Kurtz as Computer voices
• Kerrigan Mahan as Lieutenant Stragey and Brother Chubb
• Dave Mallow as Ensign Kije
• Michael McConnohie as Lieutenant Christensen and Commander Taraz
• Sally Rainer as Federation admiral
• Darren Raleigh as Ensign Mosher
• Mike Reynolds as Ies Bredell
• Michael Sorich as Ensign Bennie and Kallarax
• Melodee M. Spevack as Computer voice and Brittany Marata
• Doug Stone as Prelate Angiven and Tlaoxac
• Terrence Stone as Lt. Buchert, Andrea Preax, and Brother Roberts
• Robert Towers as Crewman #1, Biabli, and Lights
• Jeff Winkless as Quetzelcoatl
• Tom Wyner as Harry Mudd and Cheever

Crew

• Design: Scott Bennie, Elizabeth T. Danforth, Jayesh J. Patel, Bruce Schlickbernd, and Michael A. Stackpole
• Programming: Paul Allen Edelstein and Jayesh J. Patel
• Additional Programming: Greg Christensen, Michael W. Stragey, and Wesley Yanagi
• Graphics / Artwork: Cheryl Austin, Scott Bieser, Scott Bennie, Todd J. Camasta, Brian Giberson, David A. Mosher, Robert Nesler, Tomoharu Tanaka
• Music: David Govett, Rick Jackson, and George Alistair Sanger ("The Fat Man")
• Executive Producer: Brian Fargo
• Producer: Bruce Schlickbernd
• Director of playtest: Jacob R. Buchert III
• Playtesting: Jeremy Airey, Scott Everts, Jason M. Ferris, Steve Nguyen, Michael Packard, Rodney N. Relosa, Fred Royal, Jay Simpson, Jason Taylor, Kirk Tome, and Christoper A. Tremmel
• CD‑Rom Version Programming: Greg Christensen
• Art Director: Todd J. Camasta
• Model Construction: David A. Mosher
• Additional Design: Scott Everts, Scott Bennie, Scott Harring, and Wesley Yanagi
• Quality Assurance: Jacob R. Buchert III and Kerry Garrison
• Manual: Jerry Friedman, Bruce Schlickbernd, Bruce Warner, and Definition
• Cover Illustration: Kevin Davidson
• Assistant Producer: R. Scott Campbell, Kevin Greene, and Jason Taylor
• Producer Enhanced CD-Rom Version: Bill Dugan
• Sound Effects & Voice Editing: Charles Deenen, Rick Jackson, Brian Luzietti, and Larry Peacock
• Voice Directing: Michael McConnohie, Bill Dugan, and Charles Deenen
• Casting / Voice director (uncredited): Melodee M. Spevack
• The crew of Star Trek would like to thank the creator of Star Trek for all the joy of discovery that he shared with us: Gene Roddenberry

External links

• Template:IMDb-link