Hello and welcome to another episode of RetroTrek, a series where I take a look at classic or retro Star Trek games, give you an introduction, followed by gameplay in form of Livestreams and conclude it with a review of the game. Since we have done both the introduction and gameplay on Combat Arena let’s take a look at it in a final review. However, before we do that I would like to ask you if you could subscribe. It is totally free and you can always change your mind later.
When reviewing a game I like to take a look at three major aspects. Overall performance, accessibility and content.
Due to Combat Arena being a very old game it doesn’t really consume much operating power, and I’m pretty sure everyone could run the game on their PC. While playing there were no lags or loading issues and actually getting from the ship selection menu to the actual battle happened nearly instantaneously. However, here is the thing. Unlike most games we are used to these days we cant just download it via steam, it has to be run through an emulator due to its DOS nature. DOS means disk operating system in case you have not seen the introduction yet. This actually gets me to accessibility. This game is under the public domain which means you can simply download it from abandonware dos and play it to your heart’s content. However only if you have an emulator for this. The best one out there is DOS box and I actually showcased it in the introduction video on how to get the game running. So if you have not seen it yet go check it out along with the gameplay stream from last Friday. After installing it on DOSbox you can dive in and play the game.
This gets me to my last point content. Combat Arena reminds me a lot of an arcade game. Because of that, it obviously does not have a story arc. So talking about that is pointless. Let’s focus on what the game actually offers. There are eight ships the player can choose from. You can either fight against another player or against the AI. The map is only one starfield although you can add a planet by pressing P on the keyboard. The most important aspect of a game these days is the goal it sets you as a player. Here is also the issue with Combat Arena. There is no goal. All the ships in the game are unlocked right from the beginning and you can’t compete against a potential human player by having high scores. Like I said I only assume this game is an Arcade game due to its looks and overall nature. Having the ships being unlockable features might be hard for an Arcade game because I don’t think people will stick around that long. But if it truly was one then why not have high scores? If it was not then unlockable ships would be awesome. For instance, you can only unlock the Klingon Battlecruisers if you managed to defeat 5 enemies. Let me what you think about that?
Ultimately it is safe to say that I really enjoyed the game. I think its loads of fun however the major issue is that this fun is limited. The game is an in-between game that you play for a few rounds and that doesn’t need any form of dedication to it. I would recommend it for everyone who wants to have a little bit of fun playing a quick round. Don’t expect to win easily as the biggest challenge in the game is its AI.
I hope you guys enjoyed these 3 episodes of RetroTrek. Next week or maybe even month will focus on the 25th Anniversary game. Feel free to put your suggestions down into the comment section. If you are new to the channel consider subscribing and if you want to support me consider becoming a Patreon. There are some cool perks for Patreons and it really helps out the channel.
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