Spacetrek

ZX Computing

Nick Pearce

THE ZX81 SOFT SELECTION Once again Nick Pearce voices his opinion on some of the new releases for the ZX81. SPACE TREK TRS Software Ltd Space Trek is a very good quality game in the Star Trek vein. The game is based around the ship's computer which acts as a 'menu' for the various commands which are at your disposal as Captain. Yours is the last remaining Federation starship in the galaxy, and you must destroy the Klingon fleet. You are armed with phasers and photon-torpedoes. The galaxy is composed of 100 quadrants, and each quadrant is further divided into 100 sectors. The commands obtainable through the ships computer are: phasers, torpedoes, long and short scans, impulse engines, warp drive, status, and visual. This last mode in interactive, allowing you to move around a quadrant and fire upon the Klingon ships - assuming you have remembered to load the phasers or torpedoes! The Klingons can also fire back, of course, so beware! Space Trek is quite a complicated game, and absorbing to play. A game can be saved at any time, and when reloaded, will continue from the point at which it was suspended. In common with other TRS games, the cassette has been 'saved' using a fast save technique, and takes 30-40 seconds to load. A game of this length would take up to ten minutes to load at normal ZX81 loading speed. TRS claim that their fast save technique is more tolerant of volume levels than the normal ZX81 save; I certainly had no problems loading the review copy. Fast save is a tremendous advantage; waiting for some of the longer ZX81 programmes to load can be an extremely tedious affair. Space Trek is a very good game indeed. TRS Software are at [redacted].