Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force

As much of a Star Trek fan as I am, I was very late getting into the fourth live-action series in the franchise Star Trek: Voyager. The first few episodes turned me off due to the lameness of Neelix, the obnoxiousness of Tom Paris, and the abrasiveness of Captain Janeway. Only recently did I give the show another chance, and it did get much better after the first season. The game Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force feels like an authentic extension of the show, but I wish I could say it was an excellent Playstation 2 game.

The premise for the game is a perfect fit for the show. Since the starship Voyager was thrown 70,000 light years from the Federation, they had to fend for themselves while heading home. To that end, the Security Chief Tuvok formed the Hazard Team, basically like futuristic Navy SEALS, to deal with armed threats. The player controls Ensign Munro, the second-in-command of Hazard Team, on a mission to free the ship from a strange pocket in space. The plot flows very well and fits with the show perfectly. There's even voice acting from all the original cast members from Kate Mulgrew to Jeri Ryan, and they all give excellent performances. The game couldn't be any more authentic.

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The game takes the form of an objective-based first-person shooter similar to games like Perfect Dark. Though the majority of the playtime involves blasting foes with your phaser, there are plenty of other objectives that come up from protecting engineers to helping Lt. Torres seal a warp core breach. The variety of objectives, weapons, environments, and enemies is excellent. There's always something new to see or do which goes far toward keeping the game engaging.

Unfortunately, my patience was severely tested by the game's technical deficiencies. While the environments looked quite impressive, the characters were absolutely ugly. They were way too boxy-looking, the mouth movements when they spoke made them look like sock puppets, and the shadow and shading choices made them look even worse. As a further phaser shot between the eyes, the framerate is inconsistent enough to give me a headache. Most of the time it's fine, but it becomes a stuttering mess when the action heats up, especially if there are friendly AIs in the fight as well. I wish I could say it was a fault of the Quake 3 engine used, but Quake 3 ran perfectly on the PS2. This was a very shoddy port from the PC.

Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force is an excellent game, but the version on the PS2 is very hard to enjoy. In the fifth generation, it was common for console first-person shooters to be poor compared to PC games. By the PS2 era, that excuse didn't fly anymore. Elite Force is still a great game for fans of Voyager, but the shoddy porting to the PS2 should've gotten someone sent to the brig.