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Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
Original System: Atari 400/800?
Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (or just
plain old Star Trek: SOS) is another Sega port of one of
their arcade games.
There are three differences between the versions.
First, there is a major change to the control scheme
between the two system. Due to the Atari
400/800 controller only having one fire button, the Warp
function had to be changed to pulling back on the
controller while holding down the fire button while the
Photon Torpedo function is activated by simply pulling
back. In the 5200 version the Photon Torpedoes have
been mapped to the second button and Warp is activated by
pulling back on the controller. This makes the
controls feel much more natural.
The second change is also related to the controls.
The Atari 400/800 version of the game also offers keyboard
commands which some may find easier to use. This
option was obviously removed from the 5200 version due to
the lack of keyboard.
The third change is actually something most people
probably won't notice. In the Atari 400/800 port
there is an easter egg where the player can type WHO
PROGRAMMED THIS GAME? at the game over screen and it will
show programmer Monti Rieman name. Since the 5200
doesn't have a keyboard this easter egg is impossible to
trigger. It's unknown if the code for the easter egg
is still in the 5200 version or not.
Interestingly Sega included a joystick overlay for the
Atari 2600 and 400/800 ports, but not for the 5200.
This is probably because the overlay was unnecessary to
begin with and with the 5200's controls being more natural
the cost of redesigning it for the 5200's controller
didn't make sense.
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