This blog was originally published on 1UP 0n 5-08-2009. This is my last "port" blog; from here on out, all entries will be multiplatform, released on both pages.
Original Release: 1986
Platforms: DOS (original), ported to Amiga, Mac, Atari ST, Sega Genesis
Publisher: Electronic Arts. Developer: Binary Systems.
With all the hype surrounding the new Star Trek movie, I guess it’stime to profile an RPG which was heavily inspired by the venerable TVfranchise, even referring to it on a few occasions. Star Wars, becauseof all the fast, CG space battles and the fact that Lucasfilm gotinvolved in gaming relatively early, publishing its own games (such asBallBlazer and Koronis Rift) starting in the early 80’s, has had noshortage of gamesbased directly or indirectly on it. Star Trek,which has beengenerally more character and plot driven rather thanby spectacularbattles against the Klingons and Romulans, hasn’tfared so well ingaming. A more RPG approach would be moreappropriate to Star Trek…and that’s what Starflight is about. It is set in the year 4620, over a thousand years after a greatspace-faring Empire ruled by the human race inexplicablydisintegrated. Humans now only exist on a colony world called Arth,alongside three other races, the insectoid Velox, the reptilianThrynn, and the Elowann plant people. Emerging from a thousand yearsof primitive society, the people of Arth have slowly rediscoveredscience and technology, and have only recently discovered the secretsof space travel, based on a high-energy crystalline element calledEndurium, as well as records of the now-dead Empire and its originalhomeworld, Earth. A company called Interstel is sponsoring a number ofpromising pilots to explore the vast reaches of the galaxy to makecontact with the various alien races and explore planets for rawmaterials and artifacts of the Empire, and you’re one of those luckycaptains selected. Outfitted with a very basic ship – Interstel is nota government organization, and expects its pilots to earn the money tooutfit their ship with weapons, shielding, and cargo space for deeperexploration – you set out from Arth to explore the galaxy, makecontact, and maybe find hospitable new worlds for colonization. 
Starflight is very much an RPG: you pick your crew from the fourraces of Arth, and train their stats – only instead of strength,charisma, wisdom, intelligence, and the like, you train them in theskills needed to interact with the ship and the universe. Science isnecessary to gather data about the worlds you explore, in terms ofatmospheric composition, environment, and minerals, as well as enemyships, and to interpret that data; Navigation is a cardinal skill thatkeeps you from getting lost in space, especially from the variouslinked wormholes; Engineering allows you to repair your ship afterbattle; Communications is of course essential to communicatepeacefully with races and gather information, and possibly save yourass from being blown up by angry aliens; and Medicine of course is toheal your crew members. Each race has things it’s good at and not goodat: the Velox are great engineers and navigators, but due to loweroverall intelligence, are horrible at science, communications, andmedicine; the Thrynn are good at communications, and the Elowan aregood at Medicine and Communications. Humans are, of course, good ateverything, like every other RPG, but unlike other RPGs, they areactually the best race at a key stat: Science. Your choice of Thrynnor Elowan for diplomacy is important: You will meet all these races intheir native form in space, and the Thrynn and Elowan have had along-standing hatred for each other; the presence of one race on yourship will turn the other race hostile towards you, profoundlyaffecting how you progress in this game.
So you explore star systems and land on planets, gathering mineralsfor sale for money, as well as plant and animal life for study. Youexplore ruins for messages which fill in the game’s back-story,occasionally findingartifacts which give your ship special powersranging from being ableto find key artifacts from orbit, immunityfrom lasers, greater fuelefficiency, and even artifacts which canblow up whole planets.Planets with oxygen, water, and suitabletemperatures can be referredto Interstel as potential colony worldsfor big bonuses, although thegame doesn’t get into colony-building.There are no "cities"other than the Starport to explore,and all of your contact withsentient races is from aboard yourship. Eventually, by exploring theso-called "Dead Zone",you’ll find a certain planet orbitinga G-class star which has afamiliar continental outline, and thus youcan explore what thefinal fate of the Empire and humanity (other thanon Arth) was.
However, Starflight isn’t all about science and diplomacy: shortlyafter the start of the game, the main conflict is slowly revealed:Arth’s sun is slowly becoming dangerously unstable, as are numerousother stars: and it is evident that there is a pattern to the solarinstability that suggests something is causing it. When theinstability reaches critical mass, the star releases large amounts ofradiation that kills all organic life within the system. This providesthe crisis: you have a limited amount of time (one game-year) toeliminate the source of the solar flares before Arth’s civilization isliterally burned to a crisp. The source of the instability turns outto be an artificial planet called the Crystal Planet, made of pureendurium. More shocking, it is revealed that endurium itself is alife-form, highly intelligent, but with a metabolism so slow itappears inanimate. From the perspective of the Crystal People, theburning of their bodies for ship fuel by carbon-based life seems likea virus, so they’ve constructed the Crystal Planet to purge the galaxyof all carbon life forms. This is why hostile races have been fleeingfrom the Galactic Core for centuries. Through diplomacy andexploration, you’ll need to gather all the tools and resourcesnecessary to destroy the planet. The game essentially ends after theone-year mark, whether you save Arth or not, and you can keep playing(due to a bug, Starport disappears regardless.)
Communication with other races is surprisingly sophisticated. You’llneed a good Communications officer, both to understand the aliens andmake yourself understood. If your weapons are armed during theencounter, the aliens will generally take it for hostility, so it’salways good to keep your weapons off unless you’re in a dangeroussituation. You can choose three postures of communication – friendly,hostile, and obsequious – keep in mind that not all races arefriendly, some will want you to be a humble, grovelling tributary,while some more cowardly races will only communicate effectively ifthey think you’re going to kill them if they don’t. There is also arace called Uhlek, which is always hostile and uses plasma basedweapons far more powerful than your ship’s weapons or shielding, andwill kill you rapidly – and keep in mind, this was the 80’s, soifyou died, you were dead for good. One of the subplots is to findanddestroy the planet whose core is the hive-brain of the Uhlek.
In addition to the cardinal alien races, you’d find the odd contactwhosepresence was never fully explained, such as a race whichtalked entirelyin binary code, a race of singing giant aliens calledthe minstrels,and even an odd spaceship whose design was obviouslybased on acertain famous spacecraft on a five year explorationmission. On thatnote, one of the messages you find in the ruins ofthe empire alsomakes reference to the infamous grain-ravaging Tribbles.
Starflight, of course, was hampered by the limitations of technology- I played it with the tri-chrome CGA graphics typical of mostmid-80’s PCs, and it only operated on a two-dimensional X-Y axis, likeland-based RPGs, instead of having a Z-axis (depth) as outer spacewould really have. But it was pretty sophisticated for its day, andreally replicated the experience of Star Trek, one of my favorite TVshows of all time, better than any other game. There was even aStarflight 2, as well as a "spiritual" successor, StarControl, made by the same designers at a different company, as EAstill owns the rights to Starflight. It came with a huge starmap and agreat instruction manual that was fun to read on its own, as it had alot of the game’s backstory – back in the 80s, most games conveyedtheir stories in their manuals, for those who don’t remember the dayswhen Zelda games came with 60-page manuals that had detailedbestiaries, treasure lists, and backstory, as well asmini-walkthroughs of the first level. For copy protection, it employeda code wheel. Failing the copy protection would bring the InterstelCorporate Police to arrest or destroy you – very cute, certainly muchcuter than EA’s recent Draconian attempts at DRM. The game was evenreleased inan enhanced edition for the Sega Genesis, but not theSNES – EA wasmore aligned with Sega than Nintendo during the 16-bit era.
It’s a shame that EA doesn’t revive this game as a contemporary RPGor even an MMORPG, because this was a great game, from a time when EAwas known as a daring, innovative games company legendary for treatingits best and brightest developers like rockstars instead of likethird-world sweatshop labor. A few of you may have fond memories ofthis game, in which case, I invite you to share them. If you don’t,your comments are still welcome. Time for a major gear shift: I’m going to return to console RPGs inthe same way I returned to them in 1994, and am going to go from allthese relatively obscure titles to a game I’m sure almost everyonehere has either played and heard of… a certain little SNES RPGblending high fantasy and magic with Mad Max-style post-apocalyptia,which is still regarded as one of the high-water marks of the genre…tune in next time… mwa, ha, ha ha!!! (HINT: Think 1994… not 1995!)