Tuesday, October 11, 2011

STAR TREK (1983) Arcade Game Flyer

Here's the flyer for Sega's cockpit model of their Star Trek "Strategic Operations Simulator" game, which appeared in arcades and bowling alleys a few months after Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan surprised everyone by becoming a huge box office hit and demonstrated that the Trek franchise still had plenty of exploitation potential left in it.

I honestly don't remember playing this game; does anyone know if it was the first authorized Star Trek electronic video game? I know there had been a couple of pinball machines, but I'm wondering whether there was a Trek video game before this one?
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18 comments:

  1. pocuscadabrahOctober 11, 2011 at 1:03 AM

    I have a vague recollection of this game. I played one at the mall in Alexandria, LA. It used the same vector line graphics as the Star Wars game. If I recall correctly, it was a very difficult game to play - nearly impossible to hit anything with a photon torpedo.

    This is the first Star Trek video game in my memory banks.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 11, 2011 at 9:06 AM

    I remember this well and played it often. It was the first official Star Trek arcade video game although there were games before it that had suspiciously similar looking space ships. "Space War" comes to mind which was, to my young and spaced out eyes, a head to head battle between the Enterprise and an Imperial Star Destroyer. "Gorf" was apparently designed as a Star Trek game but was rejected and subsequently changed.
    There were several computer mainframe games from the early seventies on but most of these were text based.

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  3. GaryOctober 11, 2011 at 9:12 AM

    This has to be the first Star Trek arcade game... if not the only arcade game. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" for the Vectrex came out the same year as this, so I'm not sure which came first. The Vectrex game is not related to this one at all.

    I LOVED this arcade game. The vector graphics were bright and colorful and reminded me at the time of the computer graphics in Wrath of Khan. Plus it had digitized voiced of Spock and Scotty! I'd love to find a working model to play again. It was a hard game though!

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  4. AnonymousOctober 11, 2011 at 1:23 PM

    I played this game, but it was not open like that it was a fully immersed cabinet like the star wars sit down version.

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  5. Patrick D. BooneOctober 11, 2011 at 4:27 PM

    I played the normal cabinet version of this a few times but like pocus found it very difficult to hit anything. To me, it took to many quarters to mess with and I ignored it after the first couple of tries.

    Which was a pity, since I loved Star Trek and always wanted to control the Enterprise. The vector graphics were pretty, at least.

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  6. AnonymousOctober 11, 2011 at 8:13 PM

    That's the version of the game I remember playing, right around the time I saw Wrath of Khan at the cinema... I may be mis-remembering, but I swear that the cinema that showed Wrath had that game in their lobby when they showed that film (or shortly thereafter), or else it was at an arcade next door. I loved sitting in the thing and having the controls in the 'handles' of the 'chair.' The game was a tad difficult, but fun, and like Gary said above, the graphics looked kind of like the tactical dispalys in the movie.
    CR

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  7. OSDOctober 12, 2011 at 4:56 PM

    Let me introduce to those who don't know of it: KLOV (killer list of videogames) hosted here
    http://www.arcade-museum.com/
    Its like IMDB for arcade games. The forums are also full of people with a wealth of information and skills in restoring and playing machines.

    A quick search indicates there is a very rare 1972 Star Trek game.

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  8. OSDOctober 12, 2011 at 6:41 PM

    Although was it legitimate, the artwork suggests it is star trek, but its probably not official as such.
    http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=2479

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  9. JapeOctober 13, 2011 at 12:04 AM

    My brother and I actually own one of the upright cabinet versions -- never found it that hard to play (though we did have a lot of practice. :) What IS hard has been finding techs who know how to repair 30-year-old x-y vector games...

    In addition to the above mentioned Space War, which clearly pitted the Enterprise against a Star Destroyer, there was Starship 1, with ships that looked suspiciously like Federation Destroyers from Franz Joseph's Starfleet Technical Manual.

    http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9782

    As for the 1972 game, it is possible it was official — given Gene Roddenberry's propensity to cash in on all things Trek whenever he could — but, like the original Tech Manual, probably unlicensed.

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  10. JapeOctober 13, 2011 at 12:18 AM

    One more thing on the sitdown design: for those arcade games that didn't have joysticks — such as the Sega Star Trek, and another favorite of mine from the same time, Tail Gunner — the controls were on armrests on both sides of the seat, giving the player a much different experience.

    With the Trek game, it really did feel like you were sitting in the captain's chair. (The stereo speakers beside your head didn't hurt the feeling of immersion either.)

    Damn, I miss Spaceport...

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  11. OSDOctober 14, 2011 at 5:59 PM

    Cool they just got one here
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Classic-Arcade-Museum/162639127324

    http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150250629667325.286727.162639127324&type=1

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  12. GavinOctober 17, 2011 at 9:35 PM

    I LOVED this game!!!! I played the hell out of it back during the day. There was a standup version as well. My local mall had two arcades. The bigger one (Aladdin's Castle) had the standup machine. The other one, which was locally owned had the one you featured in this post. Now, in retrospect, it seems odd that the franchise would go for the standup version while the locally owned one would actually pony up the cash for the more expensive "cockpit" version. I would actually go to the smaller arcade just to play the sitdown machine.

    This game was also ported to the Atari 2600 and I still have that cartridge in my collection. It is still fun to play to this very day. I love this game.

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  13. SteveOctober 20, 2011 at 11:39 AM

    Yes! I loved this game and played it often at the local arcade. It took some practice, but it was a decent simulator and the voices/sound effects were straight out of the movies. I always loved the photon torpedo sound.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa3MRQXDS3U

    There's just something appealing about hearing the sounds in a real arcade -- all of the games playing their music and demos really takes me back. And only those of us who lived in the 80's recognize the sounds. :)

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  14. jasonOctober 25, 2011 at 2:40 PM

    I played this game quite often back in the day... in fact, I played it earlier this summer at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas! Still holds up as a fun game, in my opinion. Somewhat similar to the Star Wars vector-graphic game.

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  15. Rick LuceyNovember 1, 2011 at 9:26 PM

    Wow I remember this game. I actually still have the promotional t-shirt I got in conjunction with this game release. I wonder what I could get for it these days.;)

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  16. xdpaulNovember 23, 2011 at 10:06 AM

    I loved this game, but hardly ever played it, because it cost two tokens and I could not hit the broad side of a Bird of Prey.

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  17. Thunderbird 7April 7, 2012 at 12:38 PM

    I have an empty sitdown cabinet sitting in the basement. All the electronics were fried by a sprinkler in the arcade it was in so they had to be tossed, but the cabinet is fine. The vector graphics display had a reputation for catching fire anyway. I'll have to figure out what to do with it one of these days.

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  18. flying172lJanuary 23, 2013 at 10:21 AM

    I loved it played it alot and still do i have a copy of them rom on a computer at home

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