Voyager: Elite Force Demo

Released in demo form last week (download it here), Elite Force succeeds as an action game and also as a plot-driven Star Trek adventure.  The hefty 115 MB download includes a number of pre-rendered cinematics and in-game cutscenes which combine with the gamplay to create a believable Star Trek experience.  Although there are only two missions in the demo, they are strung together in a way that makes the game flow from environment to environment with believable characters and locations, partially helped by the official Star Trek license and voice actors from the  TV show including Kate Mulgrew, who plays Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Particularly memorable from the demo are a number of scripted events which can have multiple outcomes.  Besides bringing the ship to life and adding a sense of real urgency to the game – “30 seconds to core implosion” you hear at one point – the events make it feel like you are actually influencing the game’s outcome.  For instance, at one point in the demo, you are asked to quickly raise a force field on a deck of the ship to prevent an explosion from spreading.  The first time through I hit the switch just in time, but also inadvertently caught one of the ship’s crew behind the force field.  He screamed, slammed his hands on the force field, and quickly disintegrated.  I said to myself, ‘I wonder, if I reload the game, can I hit the switch just a bit later and let the crewman escape?’  Sure enough you can, and if you save his life, he provides a bit of additional information on the mission.   I can just see myself constantly re-loading the full game to see the answers to other “What If” questions.  

Elite Force also carefully blends action with adventure and if I have any complaint, it’s that the demo errs a little too much on the side of adventure as opposed to action.  The Borg enemies on the first level are largely forgettable – in part because of their natural mechanical motions – and the rest of the demo turns into more of an exercise in button pushing than being surprised by enemy fire.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I hope the full game includes more action than we see in the demo. (Raven’s Brian Raffel told me this morning that this will be the case).

While it’s too early to make any definite judgments on the game, if the demo is any indication, we may just be looking at the best first person shooter since Half-Life (and the Half-Life add-on pack, Opposing Force).  

Note: Also check our my interview with Raven Software regarding Elite Force.