Previous Next

Life in the 51st century is rougher than ever. Mankind, now under the rule of the Third Imperium, has realised his dream to reach into the stars - and has made contact with all manner of weird and wonderful alien life-forms for his trouble.

The most alarming of these extra-terrestrial contacts, made in 5018, was with a virtually identical race known as the Zhodani, The contact was not a pleasant one, however, and the first of four Frontier Wars soon broke out between the two races.

You'd think that after four bouts of inter-stellar genocide the two sides would have had enough, but, for reasons best known to themselves, a group of corrupt officials within the Imperium is preparing to start a fifth - and, as always, there’s only one person that can stop them.

Well five people actually. Barely ten minutes ago, your merry band of travellers was having a quiet drink when a frantic young lady pushed a holographic disk into your hands, burbled something about a traitor and was attacked by a group of thugs. You made your excuses and left... quickly. Now it seems there's a price on your head and every bounty hunter in the galaxy is on your tail.

So, to take stock of your situation: you hold the only evidence which can expose the traitors and have to deliver it to the officials on some faraway planet - all of this under the less-than-friendly scrutiny of the meanest villains in the cosmos.

It never rains but it pours...

The most accurate description befitting MegaTraveller 1 is to liken it to Elite without the graphics... but with a plot. Although it's an RPG at heart, the trading side of things will appeal to all those Cobra Mk II pilots who longed to be able to land their craft.

For anyone who has played the table-top game, a lot of elements are going to appear very familiar: the excellent character-generation system, the planet names and the whole 51st century environment are all there and all very well implemented. In truth, there are only two problems with the system.

The first of these concerns the space travel: the Oids-style control method becomes very awkward until you get used to it (and that could take quite some time). This is especially true when the planet which you're tethered to doesn't want to let you go.

The second problem is far more damaging and lies in the crux of virtually every RPG available - combat. The trouble is that everything is run in real-time, which is all very well for an all-out action romp, but it's next to useless when you're trying to control five different characters.

Granted, the 'Orders' command helps out, but it's still far easier just to group your team and run from each fight. However, if you overlook those problems there is a nicely-crafted game system in there. The on-screen presentation is superb, the planets are varied enough to provide explorers with plenty to be getting on with, the trading aspect and plot devices are intelligent and the 'Stations' section on board your spacecraft is very well handled.

Ultimately, the decision as to whether this is the RPG for you boils down to whether or not you want to get caught up in a great deal of combat. If not, then MegaTraveller 1 provides plenty of challenge. If so, then unfortunately you'll have to look elsewhere - MegaTraveller 2 perhaps?