149. Psi 5 trading company

Time for flashback! Tracks from the past! Today with stories from the retro past! Where to today? Let's try space! Today's game is not Star Trek, but may give you a little bit of that feeling. It's Sci-Fi trading company for the Commodore 64. Prepare for takeoff with five, well, should I say colorful characters, a valuable cargo and more pirates than you can shoot a blaster cannon at.starting this hour with obsessed by evil and fireflies at night.

In the year of 1985, the Commodore 64 was settling in just fine as the popular gaming computer that it had become. This was also the year of the Nintendo NES and the Amiga, but that is a story for another episode. PSY V Trading Company was released that year by Accolade. It plays like a space simulator where you command a cargo ship on its way to deliver perishable goods. That's good and all.but there are also alien pirates that want the goods. They attack you and your ship soon after departure and you must reach the destination before they can steal your goods and disappear. More about that later, we are going on with some music. That would be Jumarokasuga, Dreams for Tonight.

PSY 5 Trading Company done. First you select the crew for the five departments. Weapons, scanning, navigation, engineering and repair. And they are a bunch of misfits, I tell you. Some are highly skilled in some areas, but lacking in others. Some are well rounded, but excel at nothing. All advantages and disadvantages come into play as you enter space with your ship.Here is my dream team filling the various departments. Boris in weapons, Nargo in scanning, Tigra in navigation, Shima in engineering, and Brew in repair. More music, it's C20G and BGM, brand new Reddit Rock.

Finally enters space all hell breaks loose and the pirates descend upon you Above all you must keep always moving if the ship stops when the pirates damage the engine You are in a world of hurt At first the shields absorb the hits from the pirates that won't last I tell you Once the shields cannot fully protect your ship anymore the internals start breaking downYou must give orders to the repair department to fix all broken systems. The weapons department must keep shooting at the ships and others must keep the whole operation going. Messages start pouring in from the departments. They range from friendly at first and gets increasingly frustrated as things start falling apart. The crew work by themselves, but you must keep giving them orders to direct what the ship should do at any time.Without their orders they will not be able to handle the situation as the whole thing unravels. More music you say? Absolutely coming your way. Substance and a different kind of power.

cannot talk about all the characters, so let me least mention Boris, the weapons guy. Frankly, is something really weird about him. Seriously, he is nuts and then some. A hardened battle veteran that handles all weapons well, except the blaster. Here's a hint. Disable his blaster subsystem if you value your ship. His comments are super funny to read. He might enjoy the job.way too much. The others range between unfocused, shy, have many enemies, are incompetent at some systems and some have problems with authority as well. But enough about their good sides, let's move on and move on we will do with the music. It's time for Sample Master and Dream In A Night.

The key to playing the game is to keep reading the messages from the crew and keep moving. You have to disable subsystems to gain speed. Hint from the coach, the info scanner has to go. The game is real time, not turn based, so you must react to everything happening as soon as the messages come. And stuff breaks all the time.You must of course also direct the repair droids to fix stuff and always make sure that the life support for the various members function. If you fail that, they start dying and if this happens winning gets very hard even when you can give manual commands for each department. Well, some new stuff coming your way. It's Epic Jack 340 and Inquiry.

The game is hard, but not unwinnable. I had to try several times to actually beat the mission. There are three missions and I was only ever able to win the first one. The controls are easy to understand and manage, but the full control of the ship requires the manual. Here are some things to remember. Learn keyboard shortcuts. Using the joystick to click around is way too slow. Keep always going.Keep track of the messages pouring in. You must react when important stuff breaks. The Kraven leader seems to be a joke. If it breaks, don't bother to repair it. Disable subsystems that a crew member is not proficient in. And finally, try to assess why you failed to understand how to better react the next time. Music, yes absolutely, that's what we're doing here. CSJ and...No CPU today.

Graphics, sure it's great. The characters are well animated and they show body language that is very expressive. All parts are moving and it is an information system onto itself. You are in control and jump between different departments and direct and control everything. The game is indeed strong in optics.and the visual style is that of a control panel for a spaceship brimming with reports, information and meters. Compared with many games for the C64 at the time, PSI 5 Trading Company is filled with small details that enhance the immersion into the game. The tempo is frantic and the game is relatively short. And so is our time, so we have to go on with...music. What do we have here? It's Ether audio and Toroidal.

The sounds are ok, the music is nice and it was composed by Ed Bogus. Replayability done, this game is meant to be played repeatedly until you can consistently beat it. The last of the three missions, it seems almost impossible to beat, but once you do, it's time to move on to another game I would guess. The game was a modest success, I have no data about how well it sold.So my guess is that the sales were mediocre, but the impact it had. It's mentioned in many best games of the era top lists and it has aged well. It may also have inspired a later game, Star Trek Bridge Commander, which was released in 2003 and yes I played that as well. I give this game 5 out of 5 Kramer layers andAnd now it's time to leave this retro gaming storytelling for a while. The next song is Dr. Robotnik and bring it back.

You'd better believe it, it's coming to you. Revision 2026, it has been announced. It's in Saarbrücken in Germany, and it's the biggest, baddest, best, and whatever you have it, demo party in the world. It starts in April of 2026, and me and Kurious, we will be there broadcasting live. You'd better believe it. Going on with Beyond and Celestial.

As I so often say, all good things must come to an end and flashback tracks from the past with me DJ Demon has come to an end. Leading you into that good night, that would be Enkostione and forever alone and finally Toby Fox with jewels of the prophecy. Remember you can always go to Ericade.radio to listen in.

You wanna talk back perhaps? Well we are listening, go to erikade.radio slash discord to join us in our discord forum, or send an email radio at erikade dot net. Bye bye for now, see you in a week.