Gameplay
End Game
Star Trek: Elite Force 2 starts at the end of the Star Trek: Voyager series. The Voyager crew make it home after battling a Borg sphere (featuring a cool end of level boss), so Alex Munro (your player) and the Hazard Team are reassigned on Earth. At Starfleet Academy you meet the legendary Captain Picard who decides he wants a Hazard Team on his ship, the USS Enterprise E. The Hazard Team is reassembled, and you begin training onboard your new ship.
Stereotypically you get a distress call from a Federation ship, the USS Dallas, and the Enterprise is the nearest vessel.
That’s essentially the beginning of the game, and I won’t go further because that’s when the story becomes a little more interesting. Suffice to say in no time you’re fighting bug-like alien life forms, separatists from a lower-class species, Klingons, criminals and Romulans like there was no tomorrow.
The story is fairly enjoyable, if somewhat predictable. After all, the whole idea of the Romulans somehow being involved in dodgy activities has been used in episodes and games alike for years, and EF2 is no exception. The plot is certainly entertaining enough though, pretty much from start to finish.
Arguably the story at the start of the game is stronger than the end of the game, but that’s only because the story evolves into the standard sci-fi stereotypical format (i.e. big bad guy, awesome weapon of mass destruction, must save galaxy blah blah blah). For instance, the start of the game where you investigate the USS Dallas, to about half way through the game was riveting. Certainly EF2 has a better plot than some of the more recent Trek and Sci-fi games to hit our shelves.
Beaming around
EF2 is just like your standard FPS, but instead of using projectile weapons it’s supplemented with energy weapon equivalents. The Phaser is like a pistol, the Phaser Rifle like a standard rifle, Photon Grenade launcher like a grenade launcher (funnily enough) and Quantum Torpedo launcher as your rocket launcher respectively.
Game play is again the same as your traditional FPS. Wandering from A to B to C, blasting enemies and solving little puzzles as you go. The only notable exception being the reintroduction of end of level bosses, sadly absent from most new shooters.
Most FPS have dull and uninspiring puzzles thrown in to break up the action. Elite Force 2 actually breaks the mould a little in this department by adding two distinctly new puzzle elements, rather than opting solely for the ‘Press button here, open door there’ style puzzles that are usually given (not that EF2 hasn’t got its fair share of those either of course). While these puzzles aren’t overly exciting, they are executed brilliantly within the game and they fit in well with the Star Trek environment that Ritual is trying to achieve.
The missions within the game are interesting enough, and are action packed and entertaining to go through on your first run. The only gripes I have are that they suffer from being extremely linear, only having one route through them. In fact the levels often feel quite constricting, sometimes having invisible barriers to prevent you jumping up onto some objects (even though you clearly could make the jump onto them). While this doesn’t really matter when you play through the first time, afterwards it means you have little more to do but play through exactly the same path again.
Elite Force 2 does make some amends of this aspect though. For starters the game is roughly two times the length of the first game (although personally I still completed it in less than a week). One good feature however is the reintroduction of game secrets. These consist of hidden golden starships littered throughout levels, which the more you collect the more hidden extra levels are unlocked for you. These buggers are not easy to find either! I have also discovered a very amusing sub-game implanted into the game to find. Secret areas are, like the end of the level bosses, a concept that has been left out of most recent titles, and it is refreshing to see them make a return.
Sim-Starfleet Officer
In-between the normal action packed missions are what are known as ‘Intelligence gathering’ missions. These in-between bits take place on the Enterprise (rather than the USS Voyager like previously), and is where most of the story between characters develop. These scenes are fairly well done on the whole, and the ship designed superbly with great attention to detail.
The majority of characters within the game and these walkabout scenes look fine, again with great attention to detail in both their physical appearance and in their animations whilst talking. There are also guest voice apearances by veteran Star Trek actors like Patrick Stewart (Picard), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Dwight Schultz (Reginald Barclay), J.G. Hertzler (plays Martok in DS9) and Jeffrey Combs (plays Wayone in DS9). The only character who does look bad, and move comically whilst talking is Rituals attempt at designing the Captain Picard character. His face just doesn’t look ‘right’.
These in-between intelligence gathering missions are (like the proper missions) fairly limited, with most doors on the chosen ship deck being closed, crewmembers dismissing you when you try and talk with them, and you’re character being unable to freely wander around the entire ship. There are other flaws that I will bring up shortly concerning these missions (under header ‘Geek issues’ on next page) however these scenes generally do compliment the action packed missions fairly well.
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