Game Type: First
Person Shooter
(e.g.
Doom, Marathon)
Platform:
Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X
Tested
on: Titanium PowerBook G4/800
Publisher:
Aspyr Media/Raven
Software
Year:
2000
Version:
1.2
Price:
$20/$10 Commercial
Graphics:
4/5
Sound:
4/5
Gameplay:
4/5
Overall:
5/5
Teaser
Using the Quake III Arena engine, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
delivers a solid first-person shooter with surprising non-combat
elements. You are Ensign Alexander (or Alexandria) Munro, second in
command of Voyager's new Hazard Team. The Hazard Team was formed by Lt
Commander Tuvok and Lt Foster as an elite action team to combat the
many dangers that Voyager faces.
After yet another unsuccessful holodeck training mission, you are
reporting to Captain Janeway when Voyager is attacked by an
unidentified probe. The ship is forced to destroy the probe, which
triggers an energy burst that transports Voyager to an interdimensional
graveyard of ships. Power is down and most systems are offline.
You are busy helping the repair teams when the ship is boarded by
pirates bent on stealing supplies. After repelling the invaders the
crew still has no clue about what's going on. The Hazard Team will be
sent on its first mission to check out a partially powered derelict
alien ship and gather any information about this place. That is but the
first of several missions the Hazard Team must conduct to help free
Voyager from this place.
Analysis
This game is patterned after a Star Trek Voyager episode. We have the
opening credits including the ship flyby through stellar clouds. Then
you are plunged into the action fighting a variety of enemies and
getting to use a variety of weapons. All leading up to the final
confrontation with the big boss which is followed by an epilogue scene
as the crew chats about the whole encounter.
There are nine weapons. Federation weapons include a hand phaser, a
phaser compression rifle, the infinity i-mod anti-borg gun, a photon
grenade launcher, and a mini-photon torpedo launcher. All Federation
weapons use standard energy to recharge. Alien weapons include a
scavenger rifle, a stasis field gun, a tetryon burst gatling gun, and a
portable welder. The alien weapons use crystals to recharge, each
crystal providing a 1/4th recharge.
Enemies include the Etherians, a new flying race. There are also the
pirate scavengers, composed of Klingons, Kazons, Hirogens, and Terran
Empire Humans. Of course you get to fight the Borg and species 8472.
There is also a level with various robotic opponents. Finally the main
bad guy aliens have small scurriers, big Reavers, mummified shooters,
and the Big Boss.
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There are like
seven sections, each section composed of one to several
different levels. Most of the time you have to get from one point to
another shooting everything in your way. Some levels are more original.
In a couple you have to do tasks, find your way around obstacles, and
generally not
fight. There is a whole section that you can almost do without combat
by sneaking around a lot.
In most away missions you are accompanied by other members of the
Hazard Team and even Tuvok and Seven of Nine each take part in a
mission. In general your friends can't die which is very useful in
harder levels. You can go forward to trigger the next wave of bad guys,
then retreat and let your buddies slowly shoot them all. It's not
perfect since the bad guys always go after you unless they happen to
get shot by your team mates. There are some parts where your fellow
crewmen can die so you have to wade in there.
It's not an extremely hard game. Even at the toughest setting I was
able to slowly plod on. It really helps that you can save at any point.
Especially at the higher levels, if you take significant damage you
should start over and endeavor to not take any damage at all. The final
level is really really tough and I couldn't finish it the first time I
played the game. I was able to finish it this time by just running a
whole lot and taking my time.
Recommendations
If you like Star Trek and First Person Shooters this is an excellent
game. The cut scenes and missions tell a story that could be a two-part
Voyager episode. The voices are all from the real actors. The graphics
are quite good -- you can tell people apart and there is a good amount
of detail. The original game is a Mac OS version and you have to either
download a patch or update to the Expansion Pack to get the Mac OS X
version. I did have some occasional freezing problems when saving but
overall it's a good value, especially now that it's cheap.
Elite Force Expansion Pack
The expansion pack has a bunch of extra holomatch levels which I didn't
look at. It also has a Virtual Voyager Tour. Basically all of the
Voyager levels that you gamed in plus a couple more and this time
everything is working. You can wander around and read everybody's
personal logs as well as other logs.
The Tour does give you tasks to complete. There are lots of little
items you can examine and pick up. The holodeck has four combat
scenarios: a "peaceful" garden, a shooting range, a Klingon mission,
and a Captain Proton mission. The latter two are quite hard but it
helps that when you die you come back at the beginning but all the bad
guys you've killed are still dead (you can't save in the holodeck).
There is also a hidden Borg Slayer game that has a top-down view.
All in all the expansion pack is worth a few bucks. |