"There are three things to remember about being a starship captain: Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew"- Captain Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager)
Welcome to a new article series I am calling "GameTime", a series where I talk about different games and my general opinion of them, not really reviews, but more so just a general vibe and if I found the game enjoyable or not.
Today's game? Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force for the Sony PlayStation 2. The game was built on top of the "id Tech 3" Engine, music was by Kevin Schilder, and the game was originally done by Raven Software and published by Activision, but I will be talking about playing the PlayStation 2 port developed by Pipe Dream Interactive and published by Majesco Entertainment.
Now I couldn't dig up much on Pipe Dream Interactive other than the fact they did the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear port for Sega Dreamcast.
For those of you who don't know the plot of Star Trek: Voyager; I don't feel I should have to explain this to my readers, but here I go.
Star Trek: Voyager's plot is simple: USS Voyager and its crew get stranded in the Delta Quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy, 70,000 light-years from Federation space, and are forced to make the 75-year journey home due to...you know what, the song "Screw the Ocampa" summed it up way better:
"We were wizzed then to the delta quadrant
Fuck, that's far away
I wanna go home, please let me go home
I say 'screw the ocampa, I wanna go home.'
The caretaker had an array
That could get us home safe
But janeway, that ignorant slut
She blew it away" - "Screw the Ocampa" by Voltaire
Now that I have the obligatory Song Quote out of the way, I can get back to talking about Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force. In Elite Force you play as Alexander Munro, who's part of "hazard team," a kind of task force for when shit hits the fan for Voyager, which is quite often.
On a side note, it seems as though googling "Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force Alexander Munro" gives me both the Star Trek wiki and, for some ungodly reason, a cosplay of Lewis J. Lovhaug cosplaying the character — seriously, what the hell...where was I? If I keep getting distracted I won't get anywhere with this article.
The main plot and gameplay for the first 4 out of 8 missions are pretty simple, and I am trying not to spoil the plot. The summary of the early game is that Voyager becomes trapped in a "starship graveyard" filled with damaged ships and a strange damping field preventing them from leaving.
So you have to go onto other ships and try to find a way to get to safety.
The graphics are what you'd expect from a Quake 3 Arena-era title, but what I do enjoy is that they got the original Voyager cast to do the acting in this game, making it feel like a genuine Voyager episode.
One feature I was personally pleasantly surprised by was the controls. This port was made in 2000 for a 2001 release — people often forget that console FPS games were not that good when it came to controls; only a handful got it right.
Somehow the crazy bastards at Pipe Dream Interactive pulled it off, so good on them.
I will say — not sure if this is Pipe Dream Interactive or Raven Software's fault — but there are points where I feel there should have been more ammo, due to the weird hitboxes where a character might stand on an explosive but not get hurt. But it's to be expected for the era.
It's gonna take you about 7 hours to beat, so it could be a fun afternoon game. I personally played a bit more than 7 hours, but mostly since I kept talking to a bunch of NPCs and side characters between missions.
Now I didn't have anyone to try out the multiplayer with, so I can't give my thoughts on that, and I will not spoil the ending or much of the game's plot, as there's a real treat for long-term Trek fans in this title.
I am thinking I will come back to this and finish the game at some point, but for now I'd say it's well worth a play if you are looking for something.