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''Protostar: War on the Frontier'' is a 1993 science fiction video game produced by Tsunami Media that blends elements of role-playing, space exploration, space combat, and strategy. The player commands a spaceship from a first-person perspective in real-time capable of traveling to the various planets in the game world and launching an explorer vessel to traverse their surfaces. Several sentient alien races inhabit the region with whom the player interacts through friendly conversation, intense spaceship combat, or barter at their planetary trading posts. One of these races, the Skeetch, is aggressively threatening to conquer the Earth; the player has been recruited to convince the other sentient races in the region to join humanity in an alliance against the Skeetch. A secondary goal of the game is to earn money by performing actions such as selling alien lifeforms and minerals collected on planetary surfaces to obtain the funds needed to upgrade the player's spaceship and improve the odds of survival in confrontations with the Skeetch and other hostile entities. ''Computer Gaming World'' criticized the game for failing to break new ground and for its "muddled" blend of science fiction themes, but did recommend it to players new to this genre. The game's working title during the first six months of development was ''Starflight 3'' as it was originally intended to be a sequel to ''Starflight'' and ''Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula''. The released game no longer retains a relationship to the ''Starflight'' game world because Tsunami Media's collaboration with Electronic Arts, the ''Starflight'' copyright owner, did not work out. However, the basic framework of exploration, diplomacy, trade, combat, and spaceship upgrades still bears strong resemblances to the ''Starflight'' games. A sequel, ''Protostar 2'', was planned but never released. ==Gameplay== As the game begins, the player character is in command a poorly equipped spaceship docked at one of the game's three space stations. Each station provides the player with a variety of services including a: *Communications Terminal: displays announcements and provides a contact line to the Human Defense Forces, *Exchange Center: a place to sell various goods such as minerals and lifeforms, *Biotech Center: disabled crew members may be revived for a fee, *Frontier Craft: buys and sells spacecraft accessories including engines, weapons, and shields, *Lounge: a place to converse with non-player characters possessing useful information. The player's spaceship may be outfitted with a variety of engines, defensive systems, and weapons. Available weapons include wave guns and accel cannons, distinguished by an inverse proportionality in their recharge rate and ability to inflict damage, and pursuit pods (guided torpedoes). Two types of defensive systems are available: dampening fields and energy shields, which provide some protection against wave guns and accel cannons respectively.〔 The spaceship is already equipped with an explorer vessel used for exploring planetary surfaces. It has a particle gun for self-defense. Both the spaceship and the explorer vessel feature cockpits containing icons through which orders are given to various crew members such as the navigator and biotech officer.〔 Players command both craft in real-time from a first-person perspective by selecting an icon representing the commander's control pad, which translates movement of the mouse into corresponding motions of the spaceship or explorer vessel. During combat the mouse buttons are used to control the selection and firing of the ship's weapons.〔 Some encounters with other spaceships result in peaceful conversations which yield important clues or provide opportunities for the player to befriend one of the region's native alien races. The player's spaceship is capable of hopping between solar systems via hyperpath tunnels, making regional journeys within a solar system, and making short-range maneuvers in circumstances such as spaceship combat. It may enter orbit around any planet in a solar system and perform a scan to gain information on that planet's general characteristics and topography. Using the topographic map generated by a scan, the player can choose a landing site. After doing so, the spaceship's crew transfers to the explorer vessel which undocks from the orbiting spaceship and lands on the planet. The player drives the explorer vessel around on the planet's surface to collect saleable minerals and lifeforms and, on inhabited worlds, to locate alien trading posts at which the player may barter with the alien race to whom the planet belongs.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Protostar: War on the Frontier」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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