Star Trek™: Voyager - Elite Force

It's a first person shooter based on the hit TV series by the same name, but most notably it's by Raven Software. So what does this mean? It means it's going to be good. Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is feels just like an episode from the show. The story is that Voyager is pulled into a strange pocket of space by some kind of entity and they have to find a way to escape before scavengers, pirate, and other hostiles come to strip the ship and leave them stranded. It stars all the major characters from the show that get to accompany you alongside your mission. This means that although you don't get to play as Tuvok or Seven of Nine you do get to experiences what it's to spend time with them. As this is a video game there will be a number of contrived reasons for you to be going into situations guns 'a' blazing where you face The Borg, spaces 8472, and the Hirogen. This is all to be expected though. Bare in mind that the campaign is very short and will take most people about 6 or so hours to beat the first time. However, there are a few other features aside from the campaign there are worth noting. For starters, there's the mutiplayer which supports not only human opponents but also bots. I have no idea how well it works today so being able to play against bots is a nice touch. It runs on the Quick 3 engine so it feels exactly like a Star Trek mod for Quick 3. Which is not a bad thing at all, I just wish it had some music or something. Finally there's also virtual Voyager. Yes the GOG version of the game comes packaged with not only the latest patch but also the expansion along with it. This includes virtual Voyager and a few side quest. Virtual Voyager is exactly what it sounds like. Explore the entire starship of voyager from the the crew's quarters to the bridg and engineering. If you're a fan of first person shooters or Raven's work, you should check it out; if you're a fan of the show it's a must have.

One of my favourite games along with Klingon Academy I played when they originally came out. After Gamespy stopped the servers for multiplayer I missed playing on the servers when I was a member of a fleet of people. I am not sure if multiplayer is still possible with internet servers with this release (I am just installing it now) and hope there is a way to bring that back. The game also had a nice expansion pack when was orignally out as well and I liked using the Virtual Voyager portion. Also not sure if this release has the expansion but game still good on its own). I went through game on Easy and Normal and made my third play through on the challenging difficulty which I never completed. Graphics and gameplay were all well done when this came out and I must have racked hundreds of hours. So happy GOG is releasing all these new games that I instantly bought them ALL that were available now (6 more games).

So the first thing that is worth saying is that yes, this does include the expansion pack- virtual voyager is in the main menu and the install folder includes an expansion pack cd key file. Thumbs up there GOG but slightly surprised you didn't mention it on the store page. As to the game itself, this is a great star trek based shooter (I'd argue better than EF2) and it brings back some wonderful memories. More than that though, it actually stands up well today with great gameplay, nice lighting effects and a decent story. Technical wise this is the usual good GOG experience (even on windows 10 with a laptop graphics card)- an easy clean install process and great performance with, so far, no glitches or crashes to report. Slightly disappointed to see no wide screen menu options still, but as I recall it's doable with a simple cfg file hack. Two full thumbs up- even as someone who owns original EF/EF2 CDs this was an instant buy. Amazed and thrilled to see that GOG have managed to get through the murk of the ST game licences and these get to see the light of day again. TL;DR- like shooters, like star trek? Buy it, you won't regret.

I was never super into Trek, but I came across this game my sheer concidence back in the day as a child, not knowing at the time who developed it. I kept eying copies on ebay since then to try and run on my retro laptop but was holding out hope for a GOG release, and here it is. This is one of Raven Software's oft ignored titles, but that's a shame. If you love the Trek, it's got tons of locations and nails the look and feel of the show perfectly in that chunky Quake 3 engine goodness. Gameplay is great, run and gun but making sure to pepper in plenty of moments where you actually interact and play the role of an actual member of the crew outside of combat. You can take in the scenery of the Voyager ship inbetween combat missions too. If you're a casual fan, or hell, if you just want a solid sci fi shooter and don't know squat about the show, it's still fantastic. It's absolutely worth your time, and it holds up just as well as anything else Raven has ever done.

Widely regarded as being one of the best Trek games ever made, Elite Force really lives up to its reputation, even now. The graphics aren't mind blowing, but they have a certain charm that seems to defy the age of the visuals. I was always impressed by the variety of the levels and how wildly different they all feel to play, even though they're all just different space ships and stations. The gunplay is really good (because id Tech 3) but my favourite parts were the already where no combat took place; exploring a giant alien gunship, looking for ways past obstacles, or dashing through Voyager, shutting down damaged conduits and rescuing trapped crewmen along the way. Between missions, you interact with your crewmates as they shoot the breeze before heading to their briefings or grabbing something to eat from the mess hall. It made this starship in the future seem like a real place, like walking into the TV show. It was nice to get the perspective on a Star Trek episode from one of the crewmembers who usually just wandered around in the background of shots, kind of like the Lower Decks crew. It's a pretty short game, maybe 10 hours all in, but there are still little choices sprinkled throughout that can effect who lives and who dies, the more you keep alive, the more help you have in the endgame areas. I adore this game, I played it through 3 times the first weekend I bought it 2 decades ago. If you're a Star Trek fan, you've probably already played it, but if you're a fan of clever, engaging, well paced and well acted first person shooters, you will definitely enjoy this.