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The original Star Trek: Elite Force is an
amazing game. In fact, it’s the best Star Trek game ever made for any system, period.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the expansion pack. Good fist person shooter
expansion packs require two things:
1) A new and unique single player experience, that captures the feel of the original.
It should also offer at least a good 20 – 40 hours of additional playing time.
2) A full set of new multiplayer maps, player skins and additional multiplayer game variations.
The expansion pack pretty much fails at the first, but comes through in a big way with
the second.
All of the new single player experience is contained in Virtual Voyager. Virtual Voyager is
a full 10 deck simulation of the Voyager Starship. Pretty much everything of interest,
on the Starship, is |
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included here. You can visit everything from the warp core to the bridge.
The level of detail is truly impressive and you can roam just about everywhere. The problem
is that there isn’t that much to do, besides pointing your tricorder at things and getting
readouts. Also, even though Virtual Voyager is a very accurate recreation of the ship, a
Starship’s interior is mostly corridor after gray corridor. To be honest, I don’t know how
anyone on Voyager would ever know where they were or how to find anything… nothing is marked
and everything looks the same. You’ll find that you spend most of your time running from door
to door to find out if it will open or not. You’ll also find that most of them do not.
The highlight of Virtual Voyager is the holodeck and the 4 “programs” that you can run. Once
you enter the holodeck you have the following 4 options:
1) Program 1 (Garden relaxation program): This is basically one large garden area, which would
be completely boring if the program doesn’t malfunction and send wave after wave of mutant
beings at you.
2) Program 2 (Shooting range): The shooting range places you on a platform where multiple
targets float vertically and horizontally on all sides. This program seemed like a huge waste
of time to me.
3) Program 3 (Captain Proton): This is by far the highlight of not only the holodeck but of the
entire single player expansion. Captain Proton is the fictional super hero from the (fictional)
Voyager show and you must rescue the damsel in distress.
4) Program 4 (Klingon base): The Klingon base is about as predictable as you can get. The level
design is tight and confusing, but you’ll still be able to finish this program in no time at all.
The multiplayer additions are the bread and butter of the expansion pack. The additions include:
action hero, assimilation, elimination, disintegration and specialties. There’s really quite
a bit here. On top of all the new maps, the new modes really add a lot to the multiplayer experience.
Action hero is probably the most intriguing. In this mode, one player packs more ammo, weapons,
health, and overall power than the other players. This makes a good player extremely hard to kill,
but it can be a rush to take on a whole crap load of “girly man” competitors. When someone does
kill the action hero, they get 5 frags instead of just one and they also become the new action hero.
It’s worth the $20.00 price tag just to play a few levels in this mode.
Performance wise, the game picks up at least a half planet for running so smoothly. The system
requirements are relatively low, requiring only a PII 266. Frame rates were perfectly smooth
at 1024 x 768 resolution on my PIII 800, with a 3dfx voodoo 5 card. The amazing visuals and fast
frame rates, have everything to do with the fact that the game uses the Quake III engine. Which,
in my opinion, is still the best 3d engine in gaming.
All in all, the Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force expansion is a let down in single player mode,
but gets high ranks for it’s multiplayer additions. If you played the original only for its
amazing single player story, then take a pass on the expansion. But, if you just can’t get enough
of online, multi-player phaser frag fests, then definitely pick up a copy. I’m giving the game a
3.5 planet rating. If it weren’t for the low $20.00 price tag, it would’ve only been 3 planets.
Gamer42's Rating:
3.5 out of 5 Planets
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