If you're looking for an FPS experience that is both strong as a shooter and also lovingly recreates the world of Voyager, look no further! Using the Unreal Engine as was at the time, Elite Force was a breath of fresh air after some of the slightly less strong shooters that had come out such as Klingon Honour Guard. The phasers you use feel good to handle, the movement is slick and the team dynamics seem to work well for a game of its time. The story is also well done, and sits well in a Star Trek mould of storytelling. It is not perfect however. The main thing from memory is that the voice acting outside of the bits done by the actual series actors are a bit weak. This was commonplace across most games outside of Lucasarts style adventures of the time, however it does occasionally break the immersion in the game, however these moments are usually brief. The stealth parts of the game also occasionally feel a bit shonky, but this was a time where stealth was being added to every game as following the success of Metal Gear Solid and Thief and wasn't necessarily as well developed as these games were. All this is forgivable however when the overall gameplay, characters and worldbuilding are generally strong.
MDK was a whole barrel of laughs. The comic enemies, the pure adrenaline rush of the combat sequences, and yet the great balance with the puzzles, that although sometimes stumping you, never quite perplexed to the point of frustration, and the truly awesome, and well animated (for the time) character of Kurt Hectic. MDK 2 still has many of these elements, and does add some extra bits, Max's levels are pretty cool, any game that allows the player to wield four chainguns simulataneously is doing something right, and the Doctor's levels, though often frustrating do help to break up the game a little bit. That said, when I say the Doctor's levels are frustrating, I really mean it. The control system for his inventory is un-intuitive, which is not too handy in the middle of a boss fight (A point and click system would have worked much better in my opinion) and although he is not suited to be an action character, there is still an insistence on putting platforming sequences which sometimes require near pixel-perfect accuracy to beat. Every time one of his levels came up, I found it a chore, and found myself wishing for one of Kurt or Max's levels. The other thing that annoyed me slightly was the voice acting. There is a very fine line between good and bad comic-book style melodrama, and though the team definitely tried to pull the stops out, something about the gags just fall flat, time after time. However, all that said, I must re-emphasise that there is some great high-adrenaline fun to be had in this game, particularly in the combat, and Max's jetpack sequences. Also, the addition of mouse aiming is a welcome adjustment, and seeing as it's only $5.99, (or in my currency, £3) it may be worth a look in.
