Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force

The Good
Lt. Commander Tuvok has decided that Voyager needs an ELITE FORCE of operatives who can defend Voyager and operate as a quick strike landing party. This ELITE FORCE will be called... the Hazard Team. Oh well. Vulcan creativity aside, this game is really good. Elite Force combines traditional first person shooters with squad based shooters. You will often work with a team of heavily armed crewmen on dangerous missions.

Voyager was been whisked into an Intergalactic junkyard populated with aliens and scavengers and is trapped by a central object known as the Forge. A series of missions (largely seamless) explore the mystery of the Forge as you travel to alien ships, ships that mirror Federation technology and defend Voyager against hostile attacks. Between missions you can interact with the senior staff (all voiced by the series' actors- a great touch), visit the Holodeck, the mess hall and other Voyager environs.

In addition to your trusty phaser (one of the best fps stand-by weapons since the crowbar/wrench? in System Shock 2), you have a wide selection of beam weapons and explosive devices including a personal photon torpedo launcher! As the game's tagline suggests, Stun is not an option.

Most of the missions involve killing everything in your path, but others require some degree of stealth. Team mates are largely unexpendable and senior staff members never are, so some missions require defensive strategies as well as a good offense. There are few, if any, key finding missions and the puzzles are logical and largely confined to restoring power and bypassing blockages.

Lastly, while I'm not a multiplayer fan, it seems like Elite Force's Holomatches would be pretty cool.

The Bad
Elite Force feels immersive to a degree but the amount of movement is severely restricted on Voyager (it's a bad sign when finding your quarters is an Easter Egg) and levels are pretty straight forward. While you can interact with your teammates, unless they have a scripted dialogue, they just acknowledge you and walk off. Also some elements that feel like they should be branching (like saving a crew member) have no payoff.

As a squad based shooter, the team AI did little other than jump into my line of fire or shoot me in the back. At best they drew fire away from me so I could flank around the enemies.

Load times were pretty long.

Finally why Voyager? Voyager was a boring rehash of earlier Treks that featured a mediocre crew boldly going home. Wouldn't it have been cooler to see the Elite Force concept used in a Star Trek Black Ops game (Section 31, baby!)

The Bottom Line
A really good Star Trek first person shooter with some flaws. Others have commented that this game was short and it might be, but I don't think anything would be gained by making this specific game longer. If you seem to be getting through the levels quickly, I recommend restarting at a higher difficulty level.