Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative is a fully text-based quest, the second official game of the legendary Star Trek series and a direct sequel to the first - Promethean Prophecy. As in the case of that game, we do not consider it possible and justifiable to touch on the history and analysis of the ST universe in any detail in the framework of a brief description; it is enough to say that for a successful passage it is extremely desirable to have at least a basic acquaintance with it.

This time you are playing the role of Kirk directly, and most of the action, unlike the Promethean Prophecy, takes place in the cabins of the Enterprise. The goal of the game is to find the Heinlein ship, which disappeared in the constellation of the Triangle, by order of the Star Fleet Command. In general, I must say that the plot - if compared, again, with the first game - is rather arbitrary: it seems that the game was made "for the process" and not for the "result".

The interface remains the same: no graphics, most of the screen is reserved for a detailed and high-quality text describing the state of affairs (in some cases, although it can be short), below is a line for entering commands. However, since the plot now unfolds mainly on the ship, two new windows have been added: the status of the ship (green at the very bottom of the screen) and dialogue for conversations with the team members met (black above and to the right of the command line). The only simplification compared to the previous part - movement commands can now not be entered manually, but instead click on the arrow buttons. The syntax itself, however, has become even more complicated - for management it is necessary to introduce even more detailed sentences than on Prometheus 4, moreover, accurate, because the dictionary has become more complicated in quality, but not in quantity, so to speak. In addition, a small element has been added, if not a ship’s simulator, then a captain’s simulator: you have access to various Enterprise systems, including its information database, which contains dossiers for all your subordinates, you can personally give orders for touchdowns and landings on planets (and it will be necessary to do this) and so on. All this at the same time significantly expands, and equally significantly complicates the gameplay.

There are two negative points. Firstly, what is happening, despite the apparent freedom and infinity of the world, is strictly limited in time - if you do not complete the mission by a certain date, you will lose; it could have been forgiven, if it had not been for the formal infinity mentioned here, the charms of which, in fact, would not be enjoyed. Secondly, it’s possible to forgive not only this, but - of course - the increased complexity of the “parser assault”, but it’s already difficult to forgive the actual incomprehensibility and plotlessness of “Star Trek”. For, no matter how sad it is to admit, a question of the form "Why are we here, why all this, what needs to be done?" no, no, yes, and is born in the oldheimer's head.

At the output, we thus have a "second damn lump." The game is by no means bad, in its own way even very attractive (including for fans of something very complex), but still it’s not * that * text "Star Trek" that can wake the imagination and make you believe, that we really donned the Federation uniform ...