Star Trek: Away Team Review

As for the playability, well it's satisfactory enough to keep you going for a while, even if you're not a Trek fan. Whoever played the Commandos (I must apologize for mentioning them this much, but the games are practically identical) will immediately get grips with the game. There aren't too many enemy units, and there's even less of your units. You'll have to pay a lot of attention to your every move. The enemy doesn't rely only on his visual perception - he can also hear you. The interface, therefore, displays both vision cones and sound cones, which indicate the level of noise you produce and how far it can reach...

Stay sharp, team!

We run, they hear us... what the fuck!

All possible gadgets from the Star Trek Universe like phasers, tricorders and phaser rifles have been used in this game, and many more new ones were added. These things improve the atmosphere, and introduce versatility to the game. You won't have to worry about the Borg capability to adapt the your phasers, when you can use a wide variety of bombs, mines, sniper rifles, the Vulcan nerve pinch or the stun effect. You will also be able to use audio decoys and holographic projectors to fool your opponents into ambush, the Teleportation Brig for covering the bodies, cloaking devices and Extractors to extract the Hypospray out of plants... Did I mention you can take your opponents' weapons, as well as the multitude of things you can find on each level?

One good thing that has been implemented is the possibility to pause the game at any moment, issue orders, and resume playing just like in the infinity engine. The action players will probably try to avoid this feature saying it was meant for sissies who cannot cope with real action, but using this is definitely better than loading your save-game a hundred times. Speaking of the save-games, I have to mention the extraordinarily stupid fact that you won't find your troops on the same spot if you load up a game saved from the pause mode. So, always try to save your game before you pause, just to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Apart from this and the graphics bug I mentioned, Away Team has several more annoying features. First, it took me ages to get used to the stupid path-finding. To be more precise, it's more like non-existent. Simply, the computer only shows you a red "x" when you try to send your soldiers somewhere. I first thought this was smart, as it appeared on locations that had several possible approaches, and the computer simply wanted me to choose. Later I figured out that it was simply stupid engine programming. This can really be a nuisance if you select a group of characters and send them somewhere, and some of them start going while some remain standing. The characters also have a tendency to get stuck when standing next to an edge, doors or a narrow passage. If it's any comfort, the enemies are even more stupid and likely to get stuck and their epilepsy can be used to take them down easily... It's not that bad if you always look on the bright side of life...

All in all, Star Trek Away Team won't bring you too many new things that haven't already been seen in Commandos (including the two player cooperative LAN network game). If you are a Star Trek fan, this game might interest you, and if you aren't, it might just prove to be sufficiently challenging that you'll keep playing for a while. Anyways, soon you'll have a far better choice: Commandos 2 and Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive.