Hazard Team reporting in... I played the two Star Trek Elite Force games (Trek on Quake) and wanna blab about them. This early cinematic FPS genre is one of multiple gameplay goal spinning plates I have, which I haven't... spun, for a while. Last one I finished was probably Red Faction 2 (which sucked!). Anyway, a few weeks ago I was a bit listless and wanted to play something different to the usual, then remembered I had these. Also, apologies in advance that parts of this post are a bit reference heavy, I'll include expository links where relevant so it can be followed even if not a Star Trek watcher.


Some Background: Both games are set in the Next Generation - Voyager era, where you play as Alexander/Alexandria Munro (the gender choice in the first game is abandoned in the second). The first game establishes the titular Elite Force ('Hazard Team') as a creation of Lt. Commander Tuvok aboard Voyager, meant to handle the extreme and unpredictable risks encountered by the ship while lost in the Delta Quadrant (70 years travel from home). When I was explaining that to my partner (who introduced me to Trek via Voyager), she said "is the hazard team just Janeway in a tank top?". The second game is mostly set post 'Endgame' (after Voyager's return to Earth) with the team reassigned, deemed as 'unnecessary' in safe Federation space. A pointless 'months later' happens instantly and Captain Picard comes across your character teaching at the academy, is impressed with what he sees (you slaughtering holographic Klingons with a Bat'leth for no reason), and re-commissions the team aboard the Enterprise (-E, around Nemesis era).


Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force

I had started playing the first entry a few years back (think I was still using Windows then), but only once or twice despite really enjoying it. This was actually made by Raven Software who did stuff like Hexen/Heretic and the Jedi Knight/Academy games before being regrettably relegated to 'Call of Duty support studio'. Firstly, NOTHING on this earth feels as good as Quake engine physics, it's got such a sense of speed to the movement, and feels amazing to leap around these long levels. Secondly, this is one of the greatest FPS games I've ever played. Guns and gunplay were fantastic, everything had a unique purpose or better efficacy on certain enemy types, ammo/recharge bays were sufficient across all the maps, and the story was fantastic.

The story does a really good job inserting itself into the Voyager lore (around season 5-6), as they get sucked into a weird realm/dimension so it doesn't interfere with the show as a whole. It comes with a fully mapped out 3D Voyager you can explore, with lots of little touches (like a pon farr romance ebook in your room), and the cast of the show voice their counterparts in game too. Even the genre necessary stuff like ammo/shield recharge bays were pretty lore-friendly, and your infinite inventory is explained as your guns being dematerialzed in a 'transporter buffer' on your hip (with accompanying sounds and visuals). The non-action interpersonal stuff is done really well too, which I feel is weirdly missing from other Trek games.

When I watch the shows, I want a game experience mirroring them, something like a roleplay or adventure game that lets you do everything they do and 'live' in their world. I was hoping I would get this when I tried Star Trek Online, but between your character essentially 'becoming the ship' when in space, being immediately field-promoted to captain out of the academy, and the on ground stuff being repetitive MMO dungeon slop, I was pretty dissapointed. I guess what I ideally want is something like Sea of Thieves, with a larger player cap per ship, and a Trek coat of paint. A game where you perform a task essential to the ship's function as apart of a larger crew, with the ship moving forward and doing stuff due to your combined efforts, and a role like Captain being more directing others rather than piloting the ship. But this is a pipe-dream game that would probably require 100 human RPers to meaningfully pull off, lmao.

All of that crap was to say; Elite Force handles the crew interactions and pacing, that is in my opinion essential to Trek, extremely well. Between each mission you are back on the ship, sometimes you're required to test new weapons found/replicated in the holodeck, sometimes you need to access the ships computer to research a new alien or object, and sometimes you are 'ordered' to relax in the lounge (which usually leads to a B-plot progressing conversation!). There was also this excellent mission where you went through a space station made up of old ships trapped as Voyager is, where one section was Klingon, the next Malon, then the next was original series Federation. You even have to dress up in a TOS uniform to sneak through part of it. Basically, if you love Trek, you will love this game, and if you don't it's still a very good game.

There was some jankyness that was pretty funny, two examples that stood out were the facial 'animations' looking more like GIFs (a limit of the early Quake 3/id tech 3 engine), and whenever you walked in front of an NPC they would usually yell at you to get out of the way. The latter was funny when you would have a deep and meaningful convo with someone, then accidentally get in their way and they shout "MOVE!"


Star Trek: Elite Force II

An improvement in graphics and engine, a step backwards in story and gameplay. This was done by a different team in Ritual Entertainment, their last game being based on Heavy Metal 2000 (which might explain some of my notes). Overall I still enjoyed elements of it, but mostly because they were linked to Star Trek. Succinctly, I would describe this as a male power fantasy injected into a mediocre FPS with a Trek coat of paint, which if you are a fan you understand is thematically oil and water, but Trek games (in this genre, and in general) are so few you might persevere and try it anyway. I'm just going to leave my notes below in bullet points, which I took while playing because I was experiencing such quality and thematic whiplash.

I stopped taking notes coming into the final mission, which was atrocious. Just frustrating boss fight after frustrating boss fight, but the further you got the easier/quicker they were? The Romulan xray/radiation-sickness-giving gun would one shot the final bosses into their 'now I am entering my second/third/final form' cinematic. All this while being relentlessly scratched at by a dozen lowby aliens (kinda like Zerg Broodlings, but weaker). There's also a dull romance story throughout with 'dialogue choices'™, pitting your collegue/blooming romance from the first game against the scientist mentioned earlier. I considering making a joke like 'did Reg write this?', but the story was worse than any creation of Lt. Reginald Barclay. And even outside of the interpersonal stuff the story felt like the antithesis of the spirit of Star Trek, which is generally 'higher' thinking moralistic utopian-y fare. Like it kinda made sense to create a special forces unit when Voyager was alone many years from Earth support, and maybe even to have one in Federation space, but the way it's portrayed here doesn't mesh. Your guy comes across as bloodthirsty, he abandons his team to do everything alone most of the time, and extends his active service time, which doesn't feel like the actions of a unit commander on a ship with a designated therapist. I think if done right, the story would allude to some long debriefing therapy period after each mission and prior to release from service, THAT feels like a slow Trek episode holding a mirror to our current society. Whereas this, again just feels like a mediocre male power fantasy.


Anyway, that's it for now. Not sure what older FPSes I'll play next, but I have a list on the shrine/catalog page that I want to get to. Thanks for reading!