PSI-5 Trading Company (1985)

• Release date: 1985
• Category: Sci-fi | Simulation | Strategy (real time) |
• Play Mode: Singleplayer
• OS/Platform: DOS/Windows
• Developer: Accolade
• Publisher: Accolade

Review

Date: 27.Mar-2009 12:08

This is the game from the mid 80's that any boyroom-geek had great respect for! With an extraordinary soundtrack from Ed Bogas (better known for productions on Charlie Brown and Garfield) and the fenomenal codework of Mike Lorenzen, you are ready to play the role of intergalactic space-captain on your ship and lead it safely through the galaxy with your crewmembers and valuable cargo without losing it into the hands of spacepirates!

Main goal
You'll have to manage to get your spacecraft safely to its destination without attacking spacepirates destroying and stealing your cargo. This is done by giving commands to your crew, and by doing the right decisions when problems arise. And believe me: Problems will arise!

In-game facts
The game is devided into 2 parts: In the first one you select your crew that will be working for you in the various departments of weapons, scanning, navigation, engine and repairs. The characters themselves have different qualities, strengths and weaknesses, so be careful to pick those who are best fit to do the job.
In the other part is the mission itselves, and you have to get going, set a course and make sure to investigate possible foes along the way. Foes will attack, and try to destroy your weapons, shields or engines. If all of these are disabled, your enemies will start looting your cargo!

Get me started
This is not the game for the impatient and those looking for easy solutions. The original game was supposed to have 5 missions, whereas missions 1 and 2 where for beginners. But due to executive desicions in Accolade, Mike Lorenzen had to break it down to only three: Only for hard-code gamers. This is why the game is very demanding in control, and takes some time to master.
But, that aside, here are my tips for the first misson to Kozzar-7:

1. Select a crew that is not to jumpy! This is your first mission!
2. When the mission starts: Fire engines in the navigationdept. and set speed to 6, Evasive-maneuvering.
3. Prioritize engines to priority 1, and priority 2 and 3 for emergency batteries and shieldbatties in engineering. This will give you speed, and batteries will be charged for when the tough gets going!
4. As enemies occur, see to that scanning dept. puts a scan on it! You can not fire on enemies that do not have a scan-lock set on them!
5. When the first enemies shows up, start firing orders immediately! Remember which weapons your weapon-crew is good with, and use these.
6. Re-prioritize the engineering to its original setup, with shields, weapons, engines and scanners with accordingly priority.
7. As repairs are needed, but 1 robot on each task. And repair damaged robots first, then shields and weapons!

My crew
Weapons: Boris
Scanning: Blustan
Navigation: Tegra
Engineering: Wilfo
Repair: T3XR9

Good luck!

Facts and external links
Even if you get the PC version to run, my advice is to install and play the Commodore 64 version. Emulator can be found here [Link »], and PSI-5 trading company can be downloaded from ex. [Link »]
[Link »] - The number one place 2b@!
To get things up and running read [Link »]

"Bingo! Another target destroyed. I love the smell of melted metal!"

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We Say: 6

Graphics:6 | Sound:6 | Gameplay:5 | Story:6 | Totalt: 6

Screenshots

Screenshots © 2009 The DOS Spirit. All rights reserved