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Elite Force II(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: MuffinMan
I have to say from the outset that I wasn’t a big fan of the original game. Worse still, I’m not a fan of any of the later series of Star Trek, so I bought this game with a feeling of trepidation. In fact, to be totally honest, I bought the game on a whim and regretted it pretty much from the moment I signed the credit slip. I didn’t exactly rush home in a fit of heightened, sweaty anticipation to get the thing installed and up and running. So were my worse fears justified?
The simple answer is no. The longer answer follows.
The game starts with a badly rendered opening movie and from there you are into the main menu. After turning everything pretty much up to maximum I hit new game, medium difficulty and accepted the offer to engage in training. You start off in the Holodeck and the first thing that struck me was how impressive the character model for Tuvok was. Then the training course faded in and the next thing that struck me was how bland the textures were. Running through the training course I became quite worried as an awful lot of emphasis was placed on jumping ability. Fortunately this worry was misplaced, as in the game itself jumping puzzles don’t really feature much.
So out of the training course and into the game proper. The story is set up by a very good and very long in-game movie, after which you find yourself on a Borg ship. You look around and marvel at the improvement in the environmental graphics. Then you move around and are further impressed by the Borg character models, the sound effects and the music. The only real downer is the pedestrian, dare I say boring, gameplay. Shoot the Borg that walk straight at you, come across a forcefield, shoot some form of generator which blows a hole in the wall, crawl through the hole, shoot another generator, crawl back, watch a cut-scene, shoot some more Borg until you get to a forcefield, etc. I almost wanted to cry. You will, from time to time, have teammates with you who will also shoot the Borg, but the Borg still seem to focus on you even when you’re not involved in that action.
Which brings me onto AI. To put it politely, it’s not very good. A number of times one of my Hazard Team was moonwalking as they couldn’t bypass the corner of a box or a lump of rock. On one occasion I had to physically push a character back ‘into play’ because I needed him to open a door for me. Also, it has to be said enemy AI is also weak. Sure, some humanoid characters will duck behind a crate, but that’s really about as far as it goes. Otherwise, whether humanoid or buglike, the enemy will just make a beeline straight for you.
One of the major complaints of the first game was its length. I’m glad to see that Ritual have taken note and gone quite some way to rectifying this. Firstly, they have included many more and much longer in-game movies. Through the first 3rd of the game I’d estimate that I spend as much time watching the screen as actually playing the game. This is great for fans of the various series of Star Trek, as the renderings are good, voiceovers excellent, with the script and direction being above average for a game of its type. I’m not a fan and I must admit I found it somewhat tedious. What I found more tedious though was the extreme amount of walking around that I needed to do, often for no apparent reason. An early Enterprise level consisted of meeting with a couple of my Hazard Team. So I had walk to the elevator and click on the panel inside. I then said where I was going and a new map loaded. Then I’ll got out and walked around the empty corridors until I found the room I needed, which Chell was in. Walked up to Chell, a cutscene ensued where he said hello, I said hello and the task was over. I then had to repeat the same with another member.
I found myself asking why. I still find myself asking why. I can only guess that the developers said to themselves, “Hey, I’ve just thought of a way to add another 10 minutes onto the game.” The same can be said of the puzzles in the game. They fall into two basic varieties, both accessed through your Tricorder. There’s one where you have to connect electricity points without shorting the system and another where you have to make two power waves resemble the main one. Neither really add to the tension of the game, with one notable situation in the room with the warp core. Both add to the time it takes to play the game. You also get to use your Tricorder to hack open doors, which amounts to nothing more than standing in front of it and pressing fire until the door opens, and manually entering keypad codes, which are displayed at the bottom of the Tricorder screen anyway. Both useless in gameplay terms, but both add many minutes onto the overall game time.
I’m sounding quite negative now and I don’t mean to be. It’s not a bad game at all. The gameplay itself is your basic shooter fayre, but I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing. One of the advantages of being in the Star Trek universe is that Raven could spawn wave after wave of baddies, something that is usually frowned upon, with the excuse of including a small “beam-in” animation first. Of course, this also adds to the time it takes to complete the game with no added effort on the part of the developers. I was slightly disappointed by the sheer number of arachnid and other bug-like creatures in comparison to the humanoid ones. But I suppose bugs are easy to animate or something. The weapons are all solid enough, if unexciting and like the first game you charge them at various wall ports. Level design is generally pretty good and the texture work is also of a high standard. It’s clear that the game is running on the now old Quake 3 engine and in some levels, especially where rock formations are concerned, it looks closer to Unreal or Quake 2. Another bugbear about the level design is that you’re often not able to go places where it looks as though you should be able and occasionally it feels as though your character has doubled in size because of the way he reacts to the obstacles around him. But these are minor quibbles and if you like corridor shooters you will be well pleased with the levels. The sound effects are excellent throughout and the music served to immerse you in the Star Trek universe.
It took me, by the in-game counter, 9 hours and 56 minutes to complete the game. That includes playing through the training and sitting through all of the cutscenes, the latter taking about 2 hours at a guess. I died once. Did I enjoy those 10 hours? Overall I’d have to say yes, with more enjoyment coming from some of the later levels. I found myself enjoying the characters and the story, even though I felt there was probably too much of it, but I can’t see myself ever playing through it again.
I’ve had a few brief games in Multiplayer and found it to be a completely soulless affair. The weapons don’t lend themselves to that kind of game, the levels are bland, movement is sluggish and without the story and music driving the action there is absolutely no point to fire it up. Just like the original, in other words.
Graphics 7/10
Sound 9/10
Gameplay 6/10
Overall 7/10
Posted by: danskmacabre
Wow, nicely laid out review.
Personally, I wouldn't have bought the game anyway.
I can't stand Star Trek.
Posted by: dinwitty
star trek seems to work better as the TV show, its more mental than a shooter.
Posted by: Kosh
no offense, but my visuals do NOT look like that.  I'll have to post a few pics for comparison. What vid card are you using?
Posted by: MuffinMan
Ti4200, 44.03 drivers.
Posted by: Valheru
quote:
Originally posted by MuffinMan
Ti4200, 44.03 drivers.
Even on a Radeon 9700 Pro they're that bad. Worse in fact, since on a 22" monitor you tend to run at a high resolution which then draws your attention to how bad the textures really are*
*Not my rig, a friends
Posted by: MuffinMan
quote:
Originally posted by Valheru
Even on a Radeon 9700 Pro they're that bad.[/SIZE]
Some of the texturing is better than others, it has to be said. That could also be a negative though, as it highlights how bad some of it really is 
One comment I should make is that I used some compression on the shots too, which may account a little for what some see as bad graphics 
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