Star Trek: Elite Force II (PC) - Guest Post

Regular contributor mecha-neko heads to the final frontier for another FPS Friday.

This post contains spoilers for the Star Trek: Voyager TV series.

Hey, somebody might care!

"Space. The final frontier."

Patrick Stewart is narrating the introduction to the game. That's a bit weird, considering this game is about the crazy misadventures of Voyager's Hazard Team. Both the The Next Generation or Voyager themes are conspicuously absent, we've got some twee, formless thing playing instead.

The very first level and we're already in perhaps the worst possible situation: Voyager's stuck inside a Borg ship about to be assimilated! The Hazard Team, Voyager's crack squad of no-nonsense troubleshooters, is sent to the Borg ship on a mission to destroy anything and everything they must to get Voyager out.

Trivia fans and nerds may be interested to know that this is adaptation of the final episode of the Voyager TV series. It doesn't exactly happen this way in the series, but the circumstances do line up enough so that it may have happened, but none of the characters mention it.

You play as Alex Munro, the guy on the far left.

The strangest thing about the nasty old Borg is that they don't care if you walk around their ship, just as long as you don't touch anything. It's explained that the Borg don't act because they don't see the Voyager crew as a threat, but by this point Janeway's all but moved heaven and earth in her battles with the Borg, so the Borg really ought to exercise a bit more caution.

It's only after my team of desperadoes blithely stumble onto these unstable power devices and give them a good phasering that the Borg realise that we're not just here to take pictures.

The fact that we're carrying big laser guns specifically designed to destroy Borg would have also been a giveaway.

These Borg are total wusses. They don't seem to live up to their reputation of being completely unstoppable. Although the basic phaser doesn't do anything to the Borg, the 'Compression Rifle' works just fine. It's even better than the anti-Borg I-Mod I'm using in this shot because it kills them in one hit. These Borg are just really, really stupid.

They've got one of my guys! Nooo!

Look how devasated Munro is.

I've broken into a highly guarded (there was one Borg there) part of the Borg ship to blow up some energy thing. Blowing up this essential device has taken this conflict to the next level: the Borg decide it's time to transport in some reinforcements. Two ordinary Borg drones. Scary stuff.

Did I catch the Borg on their day off or something?

To be fair, the Borg started to transport in pretty frequently in small groups by this point. Unfortunately for them, by the time they'd fully materialised I'd already ran past them.

I didn't feel like hanging around because this level is huge. There's identical corridors and lifts all over the place (most of which only work when they feel like it). If I keep moving forward, I won't get lost or turned around by fighting Borg. My team mates are making themselves useful actively taking on the Borg whenever they appear. They're good shots, they don't run out of ammo and they seem to be invincible. Go Hazard Team!

To advance, you have to find out-of-the-way rooms containing glowing devices that explode when shot. It's pretty difficult to get into these rooms and shoot the devices without blowing yourself up in the process. Carefully unplugging the devices or turning them off by other means simply isn't Munro's style.

With all the glowing devices out of action, the Hazard Team are free to turn to Voyager and escape.

BUT! The Borg intercept Munro and force him to do battle against their secret weapon. A great big Borg... guy.

At least they're now taking the Hazard Team somewhat seriously now.

BOSS BATTLE!

This boss battle is really straightforward. He's a Borg, you've got a big anti-Borg gun. It's a done deal.

Darn. We've got Munro assimilated.

Maybe not that straightforward, then.

I really like that they've put in a complete Game Over cutscene for when you lose this boss battle. I can't stand it when games don't show the full consequences of your failure.

Let's go back and do this properly.

This battle takes ages. Big Borg alternates between shooting you with green stuff, walking towards you and trying to smack you. After you've got him down to half health (which takes about five minutes of constant head shots), he starts randomly transporting about the place. If you're lucky, he'll stay still long enough for you to get one or two I-Mod blasts off at him. If you're not lucky, he'll transport behind you and hit you. It's not that unfair if you remember to constantly check your Goldeneye 007-like radar in the top right.

"ASSIMILATION IS FUTILE."

Good one, Munro!

Voyager's free of the Borg trap!

If you've seen the last episode of Voyager, you'll already know what happens next.

The Borg sphere flies out of the transwarp cloud, Voyager blasts its way out of it and we're safe and sound in the Alpha Quadrant! Not a bad result for the first level.

Back on Earth, the Hazard Team senior staff is debriefed by some whiny Starfleet turd with incredibly huge eyebrows.

"A satisfactory outcome. Starfleet is reasonably pleased."

You read that right. Single handedly freeing Voyager from a Borg trap, enabling it to reach the Alpha Quadrant safely while denying the Borg the opportunity to assimilate the advanced technology brought from the future is 'satisfactory'. The new boss has decided that Hazard Teams are a dangerous aberration and that there's no need for our kind of antics in the Alpha Quadrant. We're all sent off to different unimportant assignments around the galaxy. Munro is posted to Earth as a Starfleet Academy instructor.

The Hazard Team are reasonably upset. Hell, the very least they could have done is promote my team. They're all still Ensigns.

The rest of the Voyager crew are nowhere to be found. I guess Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor and all the rest were sick of the sight of us and ditched us at the first opportunity.

And that's the end of Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force II. The Voyager crew is safe, and all is well.

Professor Munro settles down in his new job as an Academy instructor and lives a quiet life. Here's a postcard.

TWO YEARS LATER...

The adventures are never over when Munro's involved! Suddenly, we're in a Klingon base, chopping down Romulans with a bat'leth. I switched to my phaser instead and vaporised them all in seconds. Ho ho ho!

Meanwhile, on the Enterprise-E!

The Klingon base mission was a holodeck training mission administered by Munro for the new Hazard Team recruits. I did wonder why we were killing every Romulan ever.

While Munro was toiling away in the classroom, Captain Picard had got out his old Voyager VHS box set and decided he quite likes the Hazard Team's moxy. He does his best Max face as he welcomes Munro to the new Hazard Team of the Enterprise-E.

If you check the boxes of the Elite Force games, you'll see that the first game is called Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force, whereas the second game is called Star Trek: Elite Force II with no 'Voyager'. That's a super sneaky switch.

Munro is HUGE!

Tuvok's decided to come along because Worf's on holiday. Sure, why not. They should get those uniforms looked at, because they do not look comfortable standing like that.

Hold on a second. Let's take a look at the transporter chief.

The Hazard Team's transporter chief is a badass.

Where were these guys in TNG, Voyager or Deep Space Nine?

With the old Hazard Team reassembled and bolstered by eager new recruits, we set out on our first mission under the command of Picard. What's the first thing that happens? We all get them all killed by space monsters that eat spaceships. Oh well.

Elite Force II's levels are nice looking and there's lots of attention to detail in their presentation. Everything seems consistent in its Star Trek-y way, so if you found Voyager a hoot, you'll probably like this game. There's voice work by The Real Patrick Stewart and The Real Tim Russ if you like that sort of thing. I haven't played it much, but the multiplayer mode looks solid enough (as it should be, being based on Unreal Tournament (Quake III Arena actually - Ray)).

A satisfactory game. I am reasonably pleased.