Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force

An example of the first-person shooter genre, Elite Force is based on gameplay conventions shared by multiple other games. The game is focused on story-driven combat within a 3D environment, with all activity viewed as if through the eyes of the game's protagonist. The player controls the movement of the player character through walking, crouching, jumping or interacting with the environment. The only exception to this is in cut scenes, where the player loses control of the character to a third-person view for scripted events. The player character possesses numerical values for their health and armor, which are displayed on the game's heads-up display. As the player character takes damage from non-player characters and certain aspects of the environment, both values will decrease; when the health value reaches zero, the player character will die. Armor lessens the impact to the player character's health from hostile action, but once depleted the player will be more susceptible to damage. However, both armor and health can be restored by using wall-mounted terminals or from receiving assistance from certain friendly non-player characters such as the Doctor. Elite Force includes an arsenal of Star Trek–themed weapons, such as phasers and disruptors. The weapons vary in power, ammunition consumption and effectiveness in given situations. Usually, the player is equipped with a hand phaser, a low-damage weapon that automatically recharges ammunition, and a phaser compression rifle, a more powerful weapon with an optional sniper mode for long distance kills. Other weapons, acquired as the game progresses, include grenade launchers, stasis weaponry and pulse energy weapons. The player can restock on ammunition by using wall-mounted terminals that dispense weapon energy, or by picking up certain items in the game environment. Single-player The game's single-player campaign consists of around 30 linear levels, divided up into eight distinct missions. Missions have different objectives, from retrieving a particular item and accessing computer systems, escorting a friendly character through hostile territory, or destroying vital ship and station components. Enemies come in multiple forms in the game, often as Star Trek species such as the Borg and the Klingons. Each group of enemies uses a different means of attacking: most humanoid enemies are armed with weapons similar to the player, and will use cover and squad tactics to attempt to kill the player character. The Borg differ from this in that, instead of using squad tactics, they eventually adapt their personal energy shields to most of the player's weapons, slowly rendering the player's attacks useless as they advance. Other enemies may attempt to swarm the player and eliminate them with melee attacks. The player is usually accompanied by one or more friendly non-player characters, who will follow the player and provide assistance in combat against enemies. As they are often key to the story, friendly characters must not be killed in combat except during scripted events. In between combat missions, the player can move around the USS Voyager and interact with other members of its crew, often performing non-combat tasks to progress the story. Multiplayer Elite Force was originally released with a 32-player multiplayer element, in which participants use the weaponry and characters from the single-player game to compete in several different game modes. Referred to as a "holomatch", the multiplayer is themed as though it were a holodeck experience. Players can compete against other players in local area network and Internet games, or play against bots, opponents that use the game's artificial intelligence. Each player can choose one of a variety of Star Trek characters as their aesthetic player character in multiplayer. The initial release contained multiplayer game modes shared by other multiplayer games in the genre. The standard "deathmatch" game mode involves each player moving around a level, collecting weaponry and killing the other players, with the first to reach a particular number of kills, winning. As player characters are killed, they respawn into the game after a short time. "Team deathmatch" follows the same principle, albeit grouping the players into teams to do so. Capture the flag involves two teams of players attempting to retrieve a flag within the other team's base and returning it to their own to score. The Elite Force expansion pack added an additional five-game types. In an "assimilation" match, one team plays as Borg and must attempt to assimilate the other team; if a player is assimilated, they join the Borg team, gradually reducing the number of players on the other team. The "action hero" mode gives one player more weapons, health, and overall power than every other player, but when an opposing player kills this player they take these advantages. A further game type known as "elimination" is a deathmatch game except that players can't respawn. As player characters are killed, they sit out the remainder of the round until only one player is left alive. The "disintegration" mode gives every player a slow firing semi-automatic phaser rifle that will kill and vaporize an opposing player in one shot, thus requiring shots to be carefully aimed to ensure they hit. The final game mode, called "specialties," adds a class-based mode for team deathmatch and capture the flag modes, giving players the option to choose from one of six combat roles, such as a sniper, medic or infiltrator, each with different weapons, speeds and abilities. ==Synopsis==