Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

After playing through the first few sections of the game, I was more than impressed with how the storyline branched out in new directions, and most of the game follows that formula. Just as with the first few levels, you'll be doing a variety of tasks -- taking out shield protectors, saving teammates, turning on gravity in giant ship bays. Because you'll spend the latter half of the game with a team of people assisting you, you'll be figuring out puzzles together, not just blasting through door X. In fact, that's one of the cool things about Elite Force-- you'll rarely, if ever, have to resort to finding a switch to open a specific door. Instead, you'll have situations such as one on a Borg vessel where one of your team works on breaking a force field open while you and your teammates work hard to protect them from a constant Borg onslaught. Other teammates will open doors for you, give you advice on where to go next, command you, or just plain chide you for bad behavior. Tuvok, I hate you.

The weapons aren't impressive in variety, but they are a blast to use, due to the Phaser-based look and feel of them. Handheld Proton Torpedoes fire gargantuan light blasts at enemies, Arc Welders spray out electricity like a lightning gun over nearby foes, and even the wimpy Phaser does a better job of fraying enemies than other games where you're stuck with a crowbar, a wrench, or a gauntlet to keep you happy. For the most part the weapons stick to the standard Quake formula, but visually they're bright, wild, and eye-popping enough to give you the satisfied you need, especially given that you aren't going to be blowing aliens into bloody bits like you would in your average fragfest.

Fans of the Star Trek series will enjoy finally being able to take an active part in the universe they've loved for so long (though they will probably groan at the A-Team style final section of the game), and fans of shooters in general will finally have a reason to break out their well-rehearsed keyboard/mouse stance. Unfortunately, given that the game is fairly short overall, non-rabid Star Trek fans may feel like a little cut off when they finish the game quicker than expected. But is it worth it for the overall experience? Definitely. Beam this one down using the tractor phaser from your local space mart. Or something.

However, the graphics are, frankly, pants. The neck/colloar movements are hideous and the movments themselves are a little moonwalky for my taste. You can't really interact with NPCs all that much - when you try you're met with a rude response.

Some of your teammates' one-liners get repetitive too. "Well they know we're here now" occurs far, far too often.

A nice touch is that if you're too inaccurate with your firing and hit your teammates once to often, they turn on you and won't stop firing til you're dead, which is a nice reaction.

That said, the game is still ridiculously playable, if a little linear - you can't really deviate from the course but it's still sufficiently challenging to be worth a go.