Star Trek: Elite Force 2 First Look

A year and a half has passed since the last Elite Force game captured the attention of FPS fans all over the world; it was truly one of the best Star Trek titles at the time. Everyone was thrilled with the intense gameplay, which was accompanied by an awesome storyline. The pervious Elite Force title was developed by the creative minds at Raven Software, while the creation of the sequel was left up to Ritual Entertainment - the crew known for successful titles SiN, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.², and Blair Witch Volume 3: The Elly Kedward Tale (well, that last one was anything but - Ed). Ritual has worked with Activison before (hence the game SiN) and they have now teamed-up to bring you Star Trek: Elite Forces 2. The Electronic Entertainment Expo brought us a more in-depth look at the next installment of this popular action game.

The first game became a huge success largely thanks to the entangling storyline it offered, excellent in-game graphics, and exciting gameplay. Just if anyone wants to know, the writer involved with the Elite Forces 2 storyline previously worked on several Star Trek related novels. The writer in question is Daniel Greenberg. As some of you may recall the previous game took place on Voyager. As you take on the role of Alex Munro, the leader of the Starfleet Hazard Team, the story in Elite Force 2 once more begins on Voyager (where the original game ended). The Voyager returns home to the Alpha Quadrant and you get the task to answer a distress call from a Federation vessel, the Enterprise-E. Your character, Alex Munro answers to Jean-Luc Picard; the eminent Star Trek individual who once again gets the voice of popular and talented actor Patrick Stewart. Jean-Luc Picard is not just there to give you occasional pat on the back. He also represents sort of a mentor to Munro and is one of the key characters in the whole story.

During your missions, your character has a variety of deadly races to fight against. Most of these are well-known (Borg, Klingons, and Romulans). As the developers have emphasized, the game will feature two all-new mysterious races that are still under a cloak of secrecy, so we do not know how they were named. You may observe on the screenshots that some of these enemies are scary-looking lizard-like creatures. I'm afraid we'll have to stay put in order to find out more about these enigmatic new alien races.

Weapons from the old game are enhanced and there is also a bunch of new ones to boot. The developers have revealed that the game will let players handle 12 unique weapons along with a new special grenade launcher, which allows you to cycle through various types of grenades (this one's called 'the multi-functional grenade launcher'). Star Trek fans can look forward to using famed weaponry such as the Klingon bat'leth and the newly enhanced tricorder, which now has the ability to scan the area for hazardous sections and enemy positions. Some of the weapons were already unveiled to us at the E3: phaser, compression rifle, Romulan disruptor, tetryon gatling gun, a full-featured tricorder, etc.

The Elite Forces 2 gameplay will be primarily focused on action. However, the developers have announced that there's a whole bunch of missions that divert from the standard FPS gameplay.

While developing the game, Ritual once again decided to employ the Quake III engine, using an enhanced version this time and an extremely effective level editor developed by the boys at id Software. Ritual promised to create a visually impressive environment with the use of their UBER Toolset (utilized for titles such as Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, James Bond: Agent Under Fire, Alice, Heavy Metal: Fakk2 and SiN). This modified Q3 engine allowed the programmers and designers to create some pretty vast indoor and outdoor levels - players will go through desert-like surroundings, icy environments, swamps, and many others. The game's engine gave the developers the possibility to create seamless levels. This basically means that players can get aboard the Enterprise, go across its deck while the ship it goes into warp, and then exit in a totally new and unexplored world. Pretty cool. Also, the game has highly detailed in-game models, as well as realistic physics - it was recently uncovered that one whole level will be taking place in a zero gravity zone. And, as you can see on the screens provided, there are some mighty spicy visual effects caused by various Star Trek weapons.

As for the multiplayer, players can expect to find the standard team and class-based modes, which were included in the first Elite Force game. These modes were the usual CTF and typical Deatmatch modes. However, a nice innovation came with the so-called assimilation mode, where a team of Borg players has the intricate task of 'assimilating' enemy players within a certain amount of time. This was a mode included in the Elite Forces expansion pack. The Assimilation mode and other modes from the add-on will also return in Elite Forces 2.

If there was anything in the previous game which can be regarded as a flaw, it would most certainly have to be its duration. The whole game could be completed in 10 to 12 hours. You'll all be happy to know that the playing time of the sequel was considerably lengthened - almost twice as much gameplay than in the previous title, according to the makers.

So, there you have it. Numerous Star Trek weapons, new and more skillful enemies, intricate tasks, and all of that packed in the famous Quake 3 engine. If you're a Star Trek devotee it would be a shame to miss this when it comes out.