Star Flight - Electronic Arts RRP œ24.95
                  (RPG/strategy/trading game)

Space is BIG .... and so is the area covered by Star Flight, the
new strategy game (with role-playing and trading elements) from
Electronic Arts as it gives you 270 star systems containing
over 800 planets to investigate! As with all of these types of
games, you start with minimal equipment and have to build up your
own personal fortune and equipment so that you can stand a chance
of success.

In it, you play the Commander of a Starship. Your mission, in its
most basic form, is set out in the form of a transcript of a meeting
held previously. It turns out that fifteen years ago, excavations in
a part of your planet Arth uncovered a vast underground network,
dating back to the colonisation of the planet by a group called
Noah 2 who had come from another planet called Earth following an
interstellar war between the Old Empire and its enemies.

In this network the workers found a fuel called endurium which could
be used to power superphotonic (faster-than-light to you and me)
starships. Thirteen were built, manned and sent into space ... only
two returned. More have now been constructed and you have been given
command of one of them and, with your choice of crew and 12,000 MUs
(monetary units) to spend on equipment and crew-training, must now
zoom off into the unknown in a quest for knowledge. Perhaps you
can answer some of the questions posed by the excavations?

There is so much to this game that it's hard to know where to start!
Obviously, the first thing is to pick your crew and these can be
from a range of races (human, Velox, Thrynn, Elowan plus android),
each of which has its own skills and characteristics. The aim is
to get a well-balanced crew of Captain and five crew members who
will be the Science Officer, Navigator, Doctor, Engineer and
Communications Officer. 

Outfitting the ship is the next priority and any spare MUs can be
used to give the crew additional training. As this will use up your
cash reserves, you are advised by the Director of Interstel
(Interstel provided the initial funding and starship) to mine
minerals from the innermost planet in this star system which you can
then sell to generate more cash for better equipment and more
training ... and so on, until you feel ready to set out for more
distant star systems. You can also raise funds by selling alien
artifacts and lifeforms.

The manual with the game looks daunting - 29 pages plus another 11
in a command summary booklet but as the whole game is mouse and
keyboard controlled, it is very easy to get into. As expected,
each crew member has his/her/its own part to play according to
their job description. For example, the Navigator manoeuvers the
ship from star to star and has responsibility for onboard weapons
whereas the Science Officer will analyse data collected from planets
visited and any alien spacecraft you encounter. Each crew member is
accessed from a menu system which then gives you a sub-menu of
options available at that time.

The graphics are very atmospheric, especially when you go into
orbit round a new planet and see it rotating in varying colours
according to its type (rock, ice, molten etc) and again when you
land on a planet's surface. Encounters with alien craft also use
excellent pictures as your Communications Officer hails them and
gets into conversation, hoping to find useful information without
offending them and being attacked! Each race must be dealt with in
a different way to get the best results.

But there is more to Star Flight than just flying from one star
to another, mining, collecting and selling. Messages will be left
for you at the Operations Centre at Starport and from those you will
soon learn that a great threat faces Arth; its sun is soon to go
nova and new planets suitable for colonisation are urgently
needed before it's too late. If you take note of all the hints and
clues you are given as you play, you will soon find yourself
enmeshed in a far more detailed game, both in a race against time
and also in trying to discover more about your planet's original
colonists. It's gripping stuff!

                                            Sue