tar Trek: Elite Force II is the sequel to Star Trek: Voyager—Elite Force. The first game showed how Lt. Tuvok created the Hazard Team, the Elite Force of the title, to be the equivalent of a S.W.A.T. team, charged with handling away missions that were too combat-heavy for a regular away team. In keeping with the Star Trek background, the beginning of the second game presents the Hazard Team performing its final mission in the Delta Quadrant, freeing Voyager from the clutches of the Borg in spectacular fashion. Back in the Alpha Quadrant, however, the Hazard Team is designated as superfluous and its members scattered, only to be regrouped two years later by Capt. Picard.
Throughout all this and for the rest of the game, the player takes the role of Alexander Munro, who commands the Hazard Team in its new berth aboard the Enterprise. On each mission, various members of the team accompany Munro. There is no mechanic for the player to give the team members commands; the computer always controls them. The team carry a variety of weapons and grenades and, of course, their tricorders. Most of the guns mimic weapons available in other first-person shooting games, including a special energy rifle that acts like a shotgun. The tricorders are used to open doors, shut down systems, analyze obstructions and track enemies. There is no level in the game that can be completed without a tricorder.
The story of the game unfolds over a series of missions; all of them more than one level large. The characters battle both on alien planets and on starships. Literally on starships, as in one level where they fight in zero-gravity conditions while standing on the outer hull of a starship, defending it from waves of attackers.
The joy of crawling through Jefferies tubes
Balance is the hardest part of any game, particularly an FPS like ST:EFII, whose elements include many in-game cinematics, the occasional dialogue tree, tricorder-based puzzles and lots of killing. None of the puzzles is very hard, the dialogue choices don't affect the overall plot, and the cinematics don't reveal anything that couldn't have been done in a couple of paragraphs of text. What these thing do accomplish is break up the relentless killing that is the backbone of the game, giving players a chance to catch their breath and recharge mentally. And the cinematics make a nice payoff for all the hard work of clearing a level.
As important as balance is, the crucial decisions in a FPS are "Who will the character be killing?" and "What will they be killing them with?" A Star Trek game should be all over the first question, and ST:EFII is. The player guns down waves of Borgs and Romulans, as well as scores of members of two new races created for the game. It is a shame that the AI isn't a little better, because, despite their visual differences, all the races tend to fight like the Borg, locking onto the character and coming until they are killed. Occasionally a Romulan will step behind a crate for a moment, but patience will find him in the open again.
As for "killing with," the batleth makes its inevitable appearance, and is quite welcome when it does. Charging a heavily armed enemy to cut him down with a sword never loses it charm, no matter how silly it is upon sober reflection. Oddly enough, the second-best weapon in the game is the basic Next Generation phaser. The other guns, despite their energy trails and ST makeovers, still feel more like something out of Quake than out of the TV shows. The basic phaser is quintessentially Star Trek. And, besides, it is fun to just hose enemies down with its continuous blast.
When first-person shooters first came out, I used to lament the characters' inability to climb walls or pass other obstacles. Elite Force II has jumping and crouching and climbing, but it turns out simply to be more fun to run down a hall than it is to crawl through a Jefferies tube.
— Eric
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