Star Trek Voyager is widely regarded by Treky fans as the weakest component in the Star Trek universe. While this can be debated, the first person shooter that has come out this franchise is without any argument a very broken game. The developer Pipedream Interactive apparently put a lot of heart and soul into the development of Elite Force but their dedication to this product is not evident in the final production release. Without the Star Trek franchise, this game would quickly find its way to the bargain bin. However, the franchise barely holds the end product together. Therefore, some hardcore Trekkies may find some merit in the game.

The front cover of Elite Force boasts that the game is powered by the Quake 3 engine. Therefore, our expectations were somewhat high. But after loading the game through the first few levels, we started asking what Quake 3 engine did they in fact use. We didn't remember the Quake 3 engine being this buggy and flat in terms of visual splendor. The animation throughout the game is jerky at best and very blocky. Textures are messy and could have used major tweaking. Visual effects usually found in first person shooters such as lens flares and particle effects are absent. Instead we are treated with sub-standard explosions and weapon-fire that were popular in the last generation console wars. Character animation is sub-par after seeing what can be done with game like Half-Life and MGS2. The designers had some really good ideas as far as level design goes but these ideas are ruined by fuzzy interiors. At many points we were unsure where we were going because the walls did not change as you approached them. Instead they got much fuzzier. On a positive note, the voice acting is great thanks to the fact that the entire cast was used. Soundtrack and environmental sound effects are pretty standard fare. More variety in soundtrack in order to build up tense moments, would have given more merit to the title.

As with any game these days visuals only play a minor role. You can have weak visuals but strong gameplay to deliver a great product. 3DO's High Heat Baseball is a perfect example of this. Unfortunately, Elite Force suffers in the control and gameplay department in addition to the poor visual presentation. Control is difficult at and times too fast considering the lapse in texture and polygon fill rate. Most games allow you to tweak the controls and Elite Force is no different. However, trying to tweak them to a suitable level is near impossible. Add to this some horrific load times and you have an experience that is broken into too many parts.

On the value side of things, Elite Force ends much too early for the one-player campaign. However, the multiplayer mode gives players over 30 arenas to choose from. The problem is performance suffers as you cut the screen in half or into quarters. Draw-in and slowdown become painful in these arenas. In most first person shooters you have a huge selection of weaponry to discover as the game progresses. Elite Force has a paltry 9 weapons to choose from. They have two firing modes which in theory would give you 18 weapons but it would have been more useful for the team to come up with 18 unique weapons instead of the standard fare that has been around in the genre for much too long.

If you are a huge Star Trek fan then definitely take the game for a spin from your local rental shop. Otherwise, get your first perosn shooter fill from the already released Half Life and the soon to be released Timesplitters 2.

Note: The screenshots in this review are from the PC version of the game