Voyager expands its horizons
Raven boldly go and develop an add-on pack for Elite Force
Raven's first person shooter Elite Force is one of the best Star Trek games of recent years, and the first to be based on the Voyager series. Now publisher Activision have announced that work on an add-on pack is underway, set to feature a pair of new single player campaigns, 17 multiplayer maps, a dozen new player models and two new multiplayer games - a Team Fortress style class-based mode, and the appropriately titled "assimilation", in which you must eliminate a Borg intruder before you are all assimilated.
Another highlight of the mission pack (for Trekkies at least) is a virtual tour mode, which will allow players to wander freely around 15 decks of Voyager, taking in everything from the bridge to the brig, and engineering to astrometrics. "As you move around the ship, crewmen go about the business of their lives leaving you free to explore and interact with the ship at will", according to Kenn Hoekstra. "We've added a Federation issue Tricorder for you to scan just about everything on the ship and get more information about it. You can eject the warp core, change the ship's alert status, activate the food replicators, read ship's logs and the crew's personal logs, study alien life forms in Astrometrics, talk to the crew and a host of other things. Virtual Voyager mode is the closest you can come to actually being a member of the Voyager crew."
Meanwhile the new single player missions are based around the ever-popular holo-deck, allowing you to storm a Klingon fortress or to take part in the adventures of Captain Proton, the black and white Flash Gordon style holodeck program seen in episodes of the TV series. If you feel you need some target practice first, there will also be a firing range program to test your skills on, and even "a garden relaxation program that goes awry". Which sounds .. interesting.
The release date for the mission pack is currently given as a rather vague Spring 2001, and there is also still a question mark over the title of the pack because, as Kenn points out, "Star Trek : Voyager - Elite Force is a pretty long title as it is, so we're trying to decide how to add to it without running the title over to the back of the box".