Video Game Vintage Title: Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is a space combat simulation arcade game based on the original Star Trek television program, and released by Sega in 1983.

It is a vector game, with both a two-dimensional display and a three-dimensional first-person perspective. The player controls the Starship Enterprise, and must defend sectors from invading Klingon ships.

The game was presented in two styles of cabinets: an upright standup, and a sit-down/semi-enclosed deluxe cabinet with the player's chair modeled after the Star Trek Motion Picture's bridge chairs with controls integrated into the chair's arms.

Star Trek Gameplay

The game makes use of painstakingly synthesized speech, since memory costs at the time made the use of sampled audio almost prohibitive.

Unlike most arcade games of the time, the player is presented with multiple views of the playfield. Throughout the game, survival depends on the player's ability to accumulate shields. These are rewarded by docking with starbases, which sometimes must be saved from destruction at the hands of the Klingons.

The control system for Star Trek employed the use of a weighted spinner for ship heading control, while a series of buttons allowed the player to activate the impulse engines, warp engines, phasers, and photon torpedoes. The warp button was deliberately placed farther away from the rest of the buttons, in order to force the player to reach for them in heated battle. The booth version of the game had convenient location of the warp button at the right hand thumb.