EGA Trek - 1988 - MS-DOS Game Review

[@kxmode]

Holy moly! I remember this! Wow! I remember walking into a PC gaming store whose walls were covered with plastic sandwich bags filled with 3.5" floppy disc(s), each labeled with the names of the apps written on masking tape. The walls were different colors for the category of software. I remember the gaming wall was red. I got lost among the myriad choices, the store offering an equal mix of shareware and premium software-many of the premium offerings being expensive boxed financial programs. After 30 minutes, I approached the counter and asked the owner for game recommendations (an older guy wearing a tie-dye shirt). He reached over to a plastic zip-lock bag on the back wall with masking tape labeled "EGA Trek" and a price tag of $0.99. He said, "This is an excellent game. The graphics are excellent." Thank you for resurrecting that memory! 😊

[@msdosgamereviews]

So glad to be of assistance!

[@djrmarketing598]

As a kid I was a huge fan of Star Trek and this game was always one of my favorites. I don't think I really knew how to play it right at 10 years old, but I played it. I think this led to my later playing of TradeWars 2002 on BBSes, honestly. The idea of running around a giant universe doing whatever you wanted. thanks for the memories!

[@msdosgamereviews]

Currently I am in your shoes as well, not knowing how to play this game. When it comes time to review the latest version I will play it for a while first to give a fair review

[@kxmode]

My favorite door games were The Pit and Usurper! I also loved a game on Prodigy called CEO. 😊

[@djrmarketing598]

@@kxmode The Pit was a huge favorite of mine too. I remember stuff like Bow of the Ancients, and when you got so high level you could fight gods just about. I loved Rogue / Hack and The Pit always had that cool feeling without having to run around the actual dungeonss. Man that game was fun back then! I remember they even had a graphical client at one point (or was it RIPterm based?).

[@kxmode]

​@@djrmarketing598 I remember RIP graphics, but I don't recall a RIP version of The Pit. Of course, there were only so many RIP BBSs in my area, so it's possible it did exist.

[@djrmarketing598]

@@kxmode Thinking back it may have been an EGA client for The Pit and some research says it was called "Pit Terminal". I remember back then I was trying to make a Linux based RIP client that could surf the internet from dial up shell accounts with RIP graphics instead of using PPP or SLIP. Obviously shell accounts fell by the wayside after the early 90's....

[@matthewyancer]

So happy to see this pop up in my recommended videos. Loved EGA Trek back in the day!

[@msdosgamereviews]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@rickdangerous1956]

I used to play this a lot. It's basically an update of the 1971 star trek game you used to find way back in the day on mainframes and bulletin boards, only given some basic graphics as opposed to being rendered completely in text. The objective is to destroy all invading klingon ships before the mission time runs out. You need to look at the long range scanner and fly to quadrants with klingons in them (denoted by the numbers being red and the first number, which is the number of klingons present, not being zero), go to those quadrants and blow up the klingons with the ship's weapons, and periodically go to starbases for resupply of torpedoes, energy and repairs. At one stage the author was threatened with a law suit for copyright and trademark infringement by paramount. They got around it by making a few changes in later versions of the game: the name of the ship changed from enterprise to lexington, they made some cosmetic changes to the ship including making the ship's saucer a triangle, and the klingons and romulans became "mongols" and "vandals" respectively.

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

I had a version of it on my Commodore 64.

[@pqsk]

I always wondered why they changed it. I have both versions and would play both. The animations were amazing for its day

[@msdosgamereviews]

Thanks for the tips! When I play the latest version I will see if I can get a little further into the game

[@pqsk]

I still have both of these versions. So many hours playing this as a kid

[@msdosgamereviews]

Wow, this game does seem to be quite in depth. I will really have to spend some effort and play it some more!

[@pqsk]

@@msdosgamereviews oh yes. I had many hours fighting Klingons and Romulans and then going to Starbases to resupply. What was cool was the animations and colors. Prior to this I played the Star Trek og video game on our IBM in basic.

[@GurneyHalekNC]

To this day I still play this game. Absolute staple imo.

[@msdosgamereviews]

Wow, I really have to dig into this game, then...

[@asdfate1]

wtf. I was thinking about this game all day but have never been able to remember the name. I didn't do any searching for it or anything, yet here it is on the top row of my youtube homepage.

[@msdosgamereviews]

Scary stuff, Google knows you were looking for it before you did?

[@TheXev]

WOW! I've never seen this version of the game. I had a similar game that played really close to this programmed in gwbasic tho. I had a bunch of games in a huge menu... no clue where my mother got it.

[@msdosgamereviews]

People sure were resourceful back then. :)

[@revelationnow]

EGA Trek! Fuck yeah! I think this was one of my first PC games when I was 10. I mopped the floor with those stupid Klingons. I love how this is basically the background simulation for most modern Star Trek games... or at least more modern ones. This was more on the resource management side of space operas as opposed to Wing Commander, another awesome PC game.

[@msdosgamereviews]

Sounds real fun... I really have to dig into this game a little more!

[@vipertt100]

I still have a copy of this game.

[@msdosgamereviews]

So cool!

[@StevesRetroFunzzz]

I remember downloading this off a BBS. Not bad I always preferred the Apple //e game Apple Trek

[@msdosgamereviews]

It only took a few years for the PC to go from the underdog to matching other gaming consoles.

[@AS-oz6ep]

Never played the original version with the actual names. Guess they got threatened with a lawsuit at some point..

[@msdosgamereviews]

Yeah, they did... I guess. Classic shakedown for more money, as if the Trek franchise did not make enough money. Still, I think you have to protect your IP as well. A licensing deal would have been sweet for this game, and the Trek people were stupid for not allowing this specific game to use their IP.