hroughout her six years of hoofing it through the Delta Quadrant, the Federation Starship Voyager has been the unwilling punching bag of scores of nasty alien races such as the Borg, Species 8472 and the Hirogen, to mention but a few. And while Captain Janeway continues trying to uphold the Prime Directive and make nice, Lt. Commander Tuvok, for one, is as mad--um--as logical as hell and is not going to take it anymore. In order to better handle unpredictable, combat-heavy situations, Tuvok has established an elite force of security personnel: the Hazard Team. Heavily armed and rigorously trained, this squad is called in when diplomacy fails and phasers need to be set much, much higher than stun.
Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force allows players to don the red shirt of either Alex or Alexandria Munro (even way out in the Delta Quadrant, Starfleet is still an equal-opportunity employer), second in command of the newly formed Hazard Team. As the game begins, Munro and company find themselves in just the sort of situation for which the team was created.
After being trapped in a veritable Bermuda Triangle in space and deprived of all power, Voyager has been boarded by a vicious hoard of scavengers.
After successfully repelling the attackers, Munro, Tuvok and the rest of the Hazard Team discover that their troubles have just begun.
In order to restore power and free the starship, Munro must lead the team in a variety of missions ranging from repairing a breached warp core to sneaking around a damaged Borg Cube to taking on the mighty alien race which has trapped Voyager in the first place (and which, needless to say, has very unpleasant plans for her and her crew). To complete each of these missions, players must utilize teamwork, ingenuity and, most importantly of all, nine different types of alien-squishing weapons--wielded with some guts behind 'em, of course.
The Voyager you play at home!
Playing Elite Force is like watching one of the best episodes of Star Trek: Voyager that you've never seen. Actually, that's not quite accurate. Playing this game is about as close to living an episode of Voyager as it gets. Voyager's decks are brought to life in near-photo-realistic detail, as are other environments familiar to Trek fans, such as the interiors of Klingon and Borg spacecraft. It certainly helps that nearly all the actors from the series lend their voices to the game, and their characters speak and behave just as they would on TV. The effect is completed by the excellent use of music and sound effects, most of which are also taken directly from the series.
Even a game this good is bound to have shortcomings, however. One problem is that it's just so darn linear. Players are likely to feel herded from checkpoint to checkpoint, robbing them of some of the sense of challenge and mystery vital to making games of this sort feel like more than just another crosshair-covered corridor crawl. Also, the AI of both teammates and baddies could be better, and the weapons, while formidable and well balanced, could be more varied or more creative. But the biggest problem with the game is that it's over far too quickly. True, there are hours of fun to be had in multiplayer matches once the story is finished, but a single-player game this immersive doesn't come along every day and should be lengthy enough to be savored.
While certain to delight Trek aficionados, Elite Force would be an impressive game even if a little television program called Star Trek had never come along. It supplies diverse missions, great atmosphere, well-rounded characters and a story that is legitimately intriguing. How many first person shooters can make that claim?
