"As the EGA Trek documentation explains, EGA Trek is actually a remake of one of the earliest video games (or earliest Star Trek games, anyway), so old that in its original minicomputer form it apparently wasn't uncommon to receive all the program's output through a printer. The Federation is being invaded by the Klingons and the Romulans — or rather, the Union is being invaded by the Mongols and the Vandals. (I suppose copyright lawsuits have always been around.) Naturally, it's up to you and you alone (almost) to kick butt and eradicate every Mongol you can find in 64 sectors. And even more naturally, it's not as easy as it sounds.

All of the Star Trek standards are here (albeit with different names): phasers, photon torpedoes, warp drive, various kinds of space stations, planets with dilithium mines, black holes, distress calls, death rays, view screens... Truly, once you figure out how to get around (and since the interface is reeeal old-fashioned, you might actually have to look at the help screen or even — gasp! — the manual), the most fun you can have is just figuring out how everything works and finding the most efficient way to dispense of the Mongol fleet.

You have a limited amount of energy to power all systems, including the lasers, which are prone to overheating, but are still the best way to blast things. Entorps take much less energy, but you can't carry many of them, and they're hard to aim, especially if a black hole is in the way, but they're all useless anyway if all your torpedo tubes are nonfunctioning. You can always shoot one at a nearby star and hope that the resulting explosion will remedy your woes, or even blow you halfway across the galaxy, but destroyed stars cost you points at the end of the mission. If you capture a Mongol supply station, you might have a plasma bolt or two to chuck at your enemy, provided you're far enough outside of the blast radius to remain unaffected. If all else fails, you can try that experimental Death Ray, which might destroy every ship in the immediate vicinity, or blow you up, or cause mutant crew members to draw funny faces on the viewscreen...

And that's just for starters. To say more would just give too much away. But you can be sure that you'll have to figure out a thing or two in order to survive on the Admiral difficulty level, where nasty varieties of Mongols are everywhere, everyone is sending out distress calls, and ship systems fail at a rate that would probably make Kirk throw Scotty in the brig just to make him shut up. Oh, and reinforcements keep pouring in.

EGA Trek really is a fine little game, and it will keep you busy for a time as you race around the galaxy trying to survive or even get a high score. Of course, after blowing away fleet after fleet of Mongol ships, you might begin to feel like Picard in "Conundrum," blasting away at defenseless Lysians... or something." Two thumbs up for this outstanding shareware underdog!

Note: The version for download on this site is the registered version of the original release circa 1991 before Paramount demanded the removal of all Trek references in the game ;) Big thanks to Rebecca for contributing this one!