Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Review

I'm certainly not the first to say this, but -- FINALLY, A GOOD TREK GAME! Can you believe it? Yeah, I could hardly believe it myself, but Raven Software really pulled it off! The makers of the controversial Soldier of Fortune have been working on the Quake 3 engined Trek game for quite some time now, putting a lot of creative effort and hard core coding into the project. The result is a cinematic, Star Trek episode-like FPS that proves that there is life for true FPS adventures after Half Life!

Yeah, the in-game plot development is that good! Without a doubt, the best PC representation of any popular TV franchise to date! But before you go on thinking that we finally have a title worthy of Half Life greatness, stop your cheers, and listen to some of the other arguments I'm about to present. After these few words of praise that is...

Elite Force is one of the best FPS games I've played this year. The graphics are stunning, Quake 3 engine pours polys that just ooze with Trekuesque style, and the storyline is on par with any of my favorite Next Gen episodes. (The game isn't set in the Next-Gen Universe, but since that's my favorite Trek period, I'm inclined to make such comparisons.) Unfortunately, Elite Force shows signs of goofs similar to those that have plagued Raven's previous project, Soldier of Fortune. There is absolutely no sense comparing the two in terms of single player depth, but there are some similarities in the AI design that at times spoil the very basic ingredient of first person shooters - shooting things! (Terrorists, aliens, rogue Klingons... whatever!) Unlike SoF, Elite Force features a hefty doze of team AI, which is obviously very hard to program, and takes a lot of dev. time. However, it also features the same, relatively dumb enemy AI that is mostly reduced to Doom like charges and sudden, behind-the-back energizing by the baddies. I realize this is an atypical way of writing a review, going on about AI before discussing the storyline, characters, and the rest of the general stuff, but I feel I really have to stress some of the things that caused Elite Force to fall short of legendary single player FPS status. As I was saying, Elite Force's artificial intelligence is nowhere near Half Life's. The enemy has no plan or concept that I could notice; they move sluggishly, and don't use strafe, ever. They actually move from side to side, although they seek cover when necessary. Contrary to other top-notch FPS games, the pattern in which they attack or defend is highly predictable and naive.

As opposed to Enemy AI, the friendlies behave much better during battles, although they still exhibit some annoying "routines". Generally speaking, team AI is on a far greater level than the opponent AI, and it's almost as if Raven took the SoF AI, and did a cut'n'paste, while starting the work on the Elite Force team AI from scratch. My Elite Force members have been known to act insubordinately, and even plain stupid. A couple of times during heavy phaser fights, they went ballistic on me and started zapping my ass! Clearly, they presented a more formidable challenge than, say, rogue Klingons, so I ended getting my ass fried by my own team! I still can't figure out if they responded to a couple of "friendly fire" blunders on my part, or they simply went ape shit on their own! Because my soldiers had the rare tendency to get stuck on specific parts of the map, there were times I couldn't even finish the mission! Check this out: Raven programmers have coded a routine by which none of the elevators in the game move without all my teammates being in the elevator with me. Meaning, if one of the Eliters got lost there would be no way of advancing to the next level! The routine even freezes player movement, so that you can't go back and rescue your confused teammate. As stupid as this seems, I had to replay a good portion of the mission before I could finally advance to the next area...

Although it's far from perfect, I still consider the team AI to be of high quality. Couple of my guys (and gals) even saved my butt from being assimilated a couple of times, so I shouldn't really whine as much. As I said, it's kinda awkward to start a review with talk about AI, but it is one of the more important gameplay elements, and since Elite Force is so good, I had to get the nagging annoyances out of the way before I could concentrate fully on the game's positive aspects. Short of the enemy AI, there is nothing to prevent me from "staying in late," and lying to my girlfriend that I "have some very important business to attend to." Ohh yeah, you best believe you'll be glued to your chair until the very-last wicked alien is out of Federation's way.

The Story

Before I go on about the actual plot, let me just re-emphasize that Elite Force is one of the better ST episodes I had the pleasure of watching, and certainly the best interactive episode I had ever taken part in. The storyline is leaning heavily on the Star Trek theme (no surprises there); so, you should expect a lot of clever plot twists, colorful characters, and heavy Trek-talk. And even if you're not a Trek fan, and you haven't a clue what "Warp Core breach" means, you'll still enjoy the sheer addictiveness and excellent dynamics of the storyline. The plot itself is fairly linear, with a few branching exceptions (like, should you let Foster become a Borg unit). Even the level design is made in such a fashion that it doesn't allow too much unnecessary exploration. Now, you might get an impression that I consider this a bad thing, but that's not the case. The story is compelling enough to drag you into playing "one more" mission even though the dinner is getting cold, and the reduced freedom of movement subtly adds to the overall dynamics, justifying EF's status as an action/adventure FPS.