Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force - Collector's Edition

Accessories:

PC Gamer (1-year)

Customer Reviews:

Best Star Trek Game Out There [Posted on 2002-04-28]
Best Star Trek Shoot-em'-up game there is. Various levels, bad guys, and weapons, makes this a really fun game. Collector's Edition just includes a nice comic book and an elite force pin. I highly recommend this game for ANY Star Trek fan.

Good Game [Posted on 2003-01-03]
This game is great! But to me, it needs some work on the graphics. Otherwise, you should get this game.

Excellent game! [Posted on 2003-07-11]
This game was very enjoyable although it was really hard. I don't like shoot-em-up games that much but it was a lot of fun to play a character in Voyager and the cut scenes were pretty neat.

not perfect - still a great game [Posted on 2006-09-06]
This 1st-person-shooter game has you taking on the role of Alexander Munro (or the lovely Alexandra) an ensign aboard Star Trek's USS Voyager. When Voyager was catapulted into a distant corner of the galaxy - far beyond any hope of reinforcements - Tuvok, the ship's executive officer, formed the Hazard Team, an elite corps of Starfleet commandos capable of facing any threat. Armed with a variety of weapons and trained to operate equipment on any alien starship, the team stands ready against whatever the Delta Quadrant can throw at it. Unfortunately, Munro is a bit too impulsive (as s/he proves at the end of the first level), and stands to be kicked off the team. Instead, fate intervenes and the team is forced to take Munro along when the ship is snared by an alien ship and brought through an "iso-dimensional" rift into a vast graveyard of other alien ships. With Voyager too severely damaged and drained of power to escape, the Hazard Team is pressed into duty - boarding other ships in a desperate attempt to learn the secret of the aliens that hijacked their ship, and to find the means to escape. The game relies on both alien races both familiar (Klingon, Malon, Hirogen and Borg) and new. The levels aren't too long or complicated, and a tight storyline beautifully keeps the game running. Between the missions is a mix of cut-scenes (using the game engine, ala JK2) and interactive scenes in which you prowl the halls and lounges of the Voyager and mingle with its crew.

There's a lot to love and to be disappointed with in this game, which is nevertheless the king of Trek games. Level design is a mixed bag of great and bad - with my clear favorite being the Scavenger ship, a huge space station composed of salvaged starships like a Klingon Warbird and an early 23rd century Constitution class starship (that level excels because it's such a mishmash that you never know what you're going to see next). The game wisely starts its action aboard an Etherian starship, whose wondrous insides resemble less that of a space-going vessel than an acid trip. Unfortunately, those are the early levels. The game maintains its edge with an infiltration mission on a Borg cube, only to lose it afterwards, when you find you must infiltrate other alien ships manned by either sentry robots or the harvesters and reavers - vicious and robot-like aliens. The game also has a wonderful design engine that gives some of its non-player characters a wonderful individuality (whether it's your team mates or the aliens). However, that tool, embedded within the "Icarus" engine, is barely relied on for the aliens - and most of the aliens you'll meet are faceless and uninteresting hordes. (The exception being that set aboard the Scavenger ship - where we hear Klingons complaining about their food, Hirogen discussing their latest hunts and humans playing an unending game of 3-D chess). Gameplay is hampered at all levels by the game's simplicity - though lightyears past "Wolfenstein" much of EF has you prowling the hostile corridors of enemy territory, pretty much blasting whoever you meet, and finding the exit. (Again, the Scavenger level is best because it's a stealth mission, requiring extra precision; even so, you spend so much time hiding, that you can't afford more than quick glimpses of the scenery). The designers probably felt like they could only make a game that was either a fragfest or a thinking man's RPG, and that we'd be grateful whenever it was both, for even a second.

This is actually my second review of this game, though I had to do a follow-up after having played "Jedi Knight 2" which is also based on the QIII Arena engine. Though older than JK2, Elite Force (EF) holds up pretty well. It's not as long as JK2 (you can easily finish the game in a week after playing a level a night) nor as difficult (the enemies aren't quite as overwhelming as in JK2, and the game relies on far less counterintuitive puzzles than that game). On the minus side, it's not as challenging and the simplistic game play gets annoying really quick (instead of puzzles, you have to locate control panels, which your PDA will ID on any alien ship, and throw their switches). There are two genuine boss-levels in the whole game, and maybe twice as many true frag-fests. Echoing the differences between the Trek and SW universes, EF probably sees itself more as a thinking-man's shooter, but won't make you think too hard. Though you won't need to be any kind of Trekkie to get through or even enjoy the game, fans will appreciate how the QIII engine renders their ship.

I played this on my P4 (2Ghz) XP machine without any hick-ups. A basic 64mb graphics card was sufficient to get smooth performance (why not, the game is year's old!!) I drag this game out of the dustbin now and then and find it irresistible fun - a genuine classic as much fun today as when it first debuted.

Action, Adventure, and Star Trek [Posted on 2006-12-30]
The graphics are decent for the year it was created in. I like the fact that it feels as though you are participating in the episodes of Star Trek Voyager. The only thing that I didn't like about it was the fact that you could die easily. So, I went against my mantra and used the cheat codes that prevented me from dying. I thought the re-creation of Voyager was well done, and it feels real to be in the game. The Borg made a great addition to the game, and I liked the weapons that were created too. I haven't had a chance to beat the game yet, and I still get stuck in the same place. But, overall I give this game 5 stars, and it's a must have for any Star Trek fan.

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