In Elite Force, you play Alex Munroe, the leader of a newly formed "Hazard Team." This group of elite security specialists was put together by Tuvok to go where red shirts fear to tread. And just in time! Voyager has been sucked into an unknown area of space with no power and hostile aliens ready to pick her carcass clean. All the familiar faces from the cast are there, Tuvok, Janeway, Torres, the Doctor, as well as aliens both familiar and new. As the leader of the Hazard team, you'll go up against the Borg, Klingons, Hirogen and the menacing Species 8472.
Most voice acting in games borders on annoying, if not outright awful. Not so in Elite Force. With the exception of Seven, the entire cast voices their own lines and do damn fine job of it. The dialog is as believable as in any Star Trek episode, and the actors do a good job of adding life to their polygon counterparts. Except Seven. I don't know if they couldn't get Jeri Ryan to do the work or what, but the voice stand in typifies everything bad about video game voice talent. Sure, Seven can be a little stiff and formal, but she isn't as lifeless as the voice talent plays her. If the other voice work weren't so good, Seven wouldn't stand out as being especially bad, but you're going to dread listening to her monotone as you play through the game.
The Mac hasn't been graced by many of the truly outstanding plot driven first person shooters like Half Life or System Shock 2. In fact the only other game like this for the Mac is another Aspyr game, Deus Ex. Gameplay is fairly linear, accomplish objective X to move on to area Y, but the story that unfolds as you go really gives you the sensation of playing out an episode of the series. In game cut scenes and non-player character interaction all add to the story and you're going to start caring whether the other members of your Hazard Team survive each mission.
Because you're part of a team, the game's dynamic is different than most FPS titles. Your mates will perform tasks for you like breaking down shields or laying down suppressing fire. You don't control their actions they way you do in Rainbow Six, but what they do, or fail to do, will definitely affect how you play the game.
To make a compelling game, the designers of Elite Force took a few liberties with Voyager's equipment list. In addition to the standard Phaser and Phaser rifle, you'll slowly build an arsenal of more and more powerful weapons to use against your opponents, like th personal photon torpedo launcher. Each weapon has an Unreal style alternate fire as well, adding to the variety of attacks you can employ. Elite Force also address the long standing first person shooter issue "How do I hold ten guns at once?" Those clever Voyager engineers created a special point to point transporter that lets you keep everything you find in a null space pocket so you won't be too burdened to run from a gaggle of angry Borg.
The visuals and sound effects in this game are dead on. The developers used actual sets from the Voyager series to create the corridors and rooms of the ship. Alien vessels also look like they were lifted straight out of your favorite episodes. All of those great Star Trek sounds are in there as well, so doors sliding open and phaser battles will all sound like you're really a part of the action.
Elite Force uses the Quake 3 Engine so it supports true 32 bit color textures and this makes a world of difference when you're playing using an ATI Rage Pro card. The cheese cloth effect you get from games that only run in 16 bit is completely absent. In fact, the visuals are completely up to par with those of Quake 3, as is frame rate. If you've got choppy playback with Q3, don't expect better in Elite Force.
Since you can't kill Neelix as part of the game, the only way you're ever going to get to do in that rodent is in Holomatch, Elite Force' answer to death matching. Although Holomatch is built using the Quake 3 death matching code, it is actually closer in feel to Unreal's (not Unreal Tournament's) death match mode. Levels tend to be rather expansive and the use of alternate fire definitely brings up similar play styles. There are free for all, team, and capture the flag modes to choose from and you can play as any of the alien species and several of the cast members. Mac and PC players can compete over LANs or over the Internet, so there is never any shortage of opponents to frag. Although there is nothing wrong with Elite Force' Holomatch mode, if you're a big fan of death matching, Holomatch is going to feel, well, hollow. It's good, but the real emphasis of the game was clearly put on the single player mode and you can tell. If you've already got Q3 and UT, you'll prefer their death match to Holomatch any day.
My only other complaint with Elite Force is that it is too damn short. Everything about this title is great, and just when you're totally immersed and gung ho for more, it's over. If you're the type of player who starts playing and doesn't stop for hours, you'll get maybe four or five days worth of action out of Elite Force. Does that make the game any less enjoyable? No. It just leaves you wanting lots more!
Even if you hate Star Trek, Elite Force is a good game. The story, visuals, sound effects and play mechanics are all outstanding. Despite the wishy washy multiplayer mode and the brevity of the game, it still ranks as an Editor's Choice game. I was completely enthralled by the world of Elite Force and I think you'll find that it's worth every penny.
