So I have had a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Star Trek movies. All the references to 'photon torpedoes' and transporter beams put me in mind of a retro DOS game action that I actually spent many hours playing throughout the 90's.
I is for Intra-Galactic Battles
IGB is a strategy game by William D. Hause released back in 1990. Although not endorsed in any way by the owners of the Star Trek franchise, the look and feel of the game places in the Star Trek universe. Four factions battle for control of the game world: The Federation, Klingons, Orions and Andromedans.
The aim of the game is to destroy or capture all of your opponents space craft. This is not a game for people you need graphics and storylines to enjoy a game. IGB is simple great because of the gameplay.
The alien races are differentiated by their method of attack. The Klingon weapons never miss, although their destructive power decreases with distance. The word Klingon is replaced by 'Gorgon' in all game documentation, presumably to avoid a nasty law suit. The Federation weapons have a chance of missing based on the distance they are from their target, however they always do maximum damage for each successful strike. The Orion weapons do minimal damage to the hull integrity of enemy ships but instead murder the crew onboard. Once an enemy ship has been thus 'softened up' a bit, Orions use transporter beams to try to take over control of the enemy ship.
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| An Intra-Galactic Battles skirmish. The green base has fired a laser at the pink klingon. What is klingon for "All your base are belong to us"? |
My favourite race is the Andromedans whose weapons have no maximum value - they can simply be charged up to any level, thus can be significant one-shot killers, provided you have not been destroyed while you wait to charge.
Game play involves management of resources, so that there is a healthy balance between energy used to charge your defensive shields, weapons, tractor beams and engines.
When you first load IGB you will be presented with half a dozen options for scenarios to play out, although you can also select a 'custom battle' in which you can add your own ships at will. You can play with a friend or select 'Computer' when prompted with the question 'Who will control this ship?'. You can also add ships at anytime to the battle either on your own side or your enemies, so an IGB battle can theoretically last forever, although I did find my
IBM PS/1 actually ran out of memory during a very long battle.
Play Intra-Galactic Battles in your browser now.
#startrek #dos #retro #games
