This first person shooter set in the Star Trek universe lets you take control of a member of the Starship Voyager crew as you combat the Borg and other enemies. The game utilizes the Quake 3 engine for incredible graphics as you travel through many familiar locations --Voyager, a Borg cube, a Klingon Bird of Prey, and more. The game also requires you to solve missions with the help of intelligent computer controlled teammates and allies.
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Playing this again after twenty-odd years makes me wish for a couple of things. One I wish Raven Software was still making games under their own creative direction. And two, I wish there were more Star Trek games of this quality.
After a previous failed attempt, Voyager finally gets a video game: a first person shooter based on the Quake engine. You are part of an elite squad designed for dangerous situations called “Hazard Team”. During a training mission, Voyager gets attacked by an unknown ship and, upon the ship’s destruction, gets transported to a region of space full of dead ships with a dampening field that stops Voyager from moving. You play as Ensign Munro, second in command of Hazard Team, and get sent on missions to other ships, as well as defending Voyager itself.
While using the Quake engine, the game is also inflected by Half-Life, with your Hazard Suit maintaining your health and recharging from ports on the wall. The suit also explains other FPS tropes in a way that fits the Star Trek uniforms. Most notably, your suit has a transporter buffer that can store all your weapons.
The weapons are also fun to play with, using a mixture of starfleet designs and alien weapons, with starfleet weapons using power from your suit and alien weapons using crystals. This ammo mechanic also makes choosing weapons interesting – using the portable photon torpedo launcher consumes the same ammo as the phaser rifle. The ammo placement throughout weapons also encourages you to swap between starfleet and alien weapons rather than sticking to the same weapon. You also have a standard phaser as a backup (or quickly switching to in order to blow up objects without consuming ammo).
There’s also a few puzzle and platforming sections, although I do with the Tricorder (found in the expansion) was given more of a use for this, as most puzzles are pushing switches. A few slower paced sections where you have to scan, learn an analyse stuff would enhance the game a lot – that said, it’s still a great game.
The add-on (which now comes with the standard game) lets you explore a good chunk of Voyager, playing with some consoles and having fun in the holodeck (including a Captain Proton mission). It’s a really nice part of the game, and you can even blow up the ship or just shoot people. When you get “killed”, you get a brig scene, although the response is random, so I got 30 days in the brig for vaporising Chakotay.
Elite Force isn’t just a great Star Trek game, it’s also a great FPS game. I definitely highly recommend this one.
While using the Quake engine, the game is also inflected by Half-Life, with your Hazard Suit maintaining your health and recharging from ports on the wall. The suit also explains other FPS tropes in a way that fits the Star Trek uniforms. Most notably, your suit has a transporter buffer that can store all your weapons.
The weapons are also fun to play with, using a mixture of starfleet designs and alien weapons, with starfleet weapons using power from your suit and alien weapons using crystals. This ammo mechanic also makes choosing weapons interesting – using the portable photon torpedo launcher consumes the same ammo as the phaser rifle. The ammo placement throughout weapons also encourages you to swap between starfleet and alien weapons rather than sticking to the same weapon. You also have a standard phaser as a backup (or quickly switching to in order to blow up objects without consuming ammo).
There’s also a few puzzle and platforming sections, although I do with the Tricorder (found in the expansion) was given more of a use for this, as most puzzles are pushing switches. A few slower paced sections where you have to scan, learn an analyse stuff would enhance the game a lot – that said, it’s still a great game.
The add-on (which now comes with the standard game) lets you explore a good chunk of Voyager, playing with some consoles and having fun in the holodeck (including a Captain Proton mission). It’s a really nice part of the game, and you can even blow up the ship or just shoot people. When you get “killed”, you get a brig scene, although the response is random, so I got 30 days in the brig for vaporising Chakotay.
Elite Force isn’t just a great Star Trek game, it’s also a great FPS game. I definitely highly recommend this one.
Remember when Raven Software was allowed to make actual video games instead of being forced to work in the Call of Duty mine? Good times, good times.
A competent and fun FPS from the folks who would later go on to do the Jedi Outcast/Academy games; the Trek setting allows for some fun conveniences and twists on typical shooter tropes (like keeping all your weapons in a miniature transporter buffer), and the levels themselves are enjoyably varied. Yes, it's based on the weakest of all the classic Trek shows, but nevertheless, the game often handles the Voyager characters better than the show itself does.
Great game it was like playing DOOM for star trek.
this was an overall enjoyable experience but this goes down one star for the god awful ps2 port of this. i grew up with the ps2 but i have never until now played a ps2 game that LAGGED
+ i kinda liked how for the most part the game doesn't put you on a pedestal. you are part of a team who have just as much responsibility as you
+ dialogue ambience is really good. unless you stay to listen to EVERYTHING, conversations continue without you after you leave the room. also the doctor sings to himself while he works which is an a++ detail
+ voyager's cast do a pretty good job with their voice acting and they were given decent dialogue
+ very good weapon variety! they're all fun to use in their own way
- but i can't say the same for the main cast of this game. biessman and chell (who appeared in the show what did they do to him) are cartoons for some reason???? telsia and chang are ok and foster's inbetween but holy hell is it hard to go from kate mulgrew's janeway to whatever biessman is doing
- the lag is the worst thing about this part and hugely responsible for me knocking off a star. it takes barely anything to happen. ps2 games should not lag at all
- not a major minus but what is tuvok's problem in this game
- the plot isn't interesting either which is ok for the most part until it goes full saturday morning cartoon at the end with the final boss
- extremely buggy. often audio falls out of sync, dialogue fails to fire which can stop the game entirely and force you to reset the console, and dialogue can loop
- ally ai is so bad. they are CONSTANTLY getting in your way, often into your line of fire, and on the ps2 the game lags during any decently sized engagement, where it's going too slowly for you to be able to target properly
- targeting is not fun with the imprecise ps2 controller
- what is the music doing. it's vaguely voyager-ish but it just warbles ineffectively in the background. even during the final boss. they paid a guy to make like 3 mediocre background tracks that the game cycles between for everything
this is one of those games that has to be viewed historically to enjoy properly but once you get past that it's a fun time!
wait
wait THOSE WERE TERRANS WHAT WHAT THEY DOING THERE WH
+ i kinda liked how for the most part the game doesn't put you on a pedestal. you are part of a team who have just as much responsibility as you
+ dialogue ambience is really good. unless you stay to listen to EVERYTHING, conversations continue without you after you leave the room. also the doctor sings to himself while he works which is an a++ detail
+ voyager's cast do a pretty good job with their voice acting and they were given decent dialogue
+ very good weapon variety! they're all fun to use in their own way
- but i can't say the same for the main cast of this game. biessman and chell (who appeared in the show what did they do to him) are cartoons for some reason???? telsia and chang are ok and foster's inbetween but holy hell is it hard to go from kate mulgrew's janeway to whatever biessman is doing
- the lag is the worst thing about this part and hugely responsible for me knocking off a star. it takes barely anything to happen. ps2 games should not lag at all
- not a major minus but what is tuvok's problem in this game
- the plot isn't interesting either which is ok for the most part until it goes full saturday morning cartoon at the end with the final boss
- extremely buggy. often audio falls out of sync, dialogue fails to fire which can stop the game entirely and force you to reset the console, and dialogue can loop
- ally ai is so bad. they are CONSTANTLY getting in your way, often into your line of fire, and on the ps2 the game lags during any decently sized engagement, where it's going too slowly for you to be able to target properly
- targeting is not fun with the imprecise ps2 controller
- what is the music doing. it's vaguely voyager-ish but it just warbles ineffectively in the background. even during the final boss. they paid a guy to make like 3 mediocre background tracks that the game cycles between for everything
this is one of those games that has to be viewed historically to enjoy properly but once you get past that it's a fun time!
wait
wait THOSE WERE TERRANS WHAT WHAT THEY DOING THERE WH