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Star Trek : Elite Force 2
3 years ago, we saw the release of the first Star Trek FPS (First Person Shooter). It was Star Trek Voyager : Elite Force, or EF1. This was a good success, even if you can't compare it to Quake 3 or Unreal. It broke the record of selling for a Star Trek game. Seeing that, Activision/Paramount decide to do a sequel. (Who doesn't do a sequel at Hollywood by now?) After 6 months of development, they officially announced Star Trek : Elite Force 2. Note that they took out "Voyager" since it's no longer only a Voyager game. More importantly, they decided to change developers. Ritual has been chosen to make the sequel, and not RavenSoft, which did Soldier of Fortune 2 and Jedi Knight 2 after EF1. The best reason is that Raven is currently working on a massive title, Quake4, and maybe a sequel to Jedi Knight 2 (Not official). For most fans, it was a strange decision... Since Ritual's lastest game was not a big success. (Blair Witch 3) Now, we are only 3-4 month before the release of EF2. We saw many screenshots along the creation of that game. While some decisions make the fan really happy, some others... may be strange to understand.
Engine :
While EF2 is also on the Quake 3 engine, like EF1 was, there is major difference between the 2 games. EF1 was originaly targeted to be on the Quake 2 engine, but was converted later to fit Quake 3. EF2, however, is purely done on Quake 3. The polycount of EF2 for the player model is around 2,500! Which is way more than EF1. While Raven was using a pre-Ghoul system on EF1, Ritual is using their full Uber Tools system, already used in big titles such as Medal of Honor : Allied Assault. Of what we know of the last build of that system, it allow massive improvement from the basic Quake 3. Like JK2 and SoF2, EF2 will use bones system for the animation, getting a lot of space since it gets rid of the multiple frames in the model. It also allows for smoother animation. We recently learn that the lips-sync system is made in two parts, one which is manually animated for the main character, which give really realistic animation, and a second part for the other characters using a MP3 wave analysis to animate the lips. Both systems have been tested and reported to... rock.
Graphics :
EF1 was using low resolution textures and skins, since it was supposed to meet computer spec between Q2 and Q3. Some mods tried to fix that in the last 2 years, but it was more like rebuilding the whole game... EF2, is expect to use textures closer to what we called "High-Resolution", which is textures of 1024 pixels and above. We know the player model will use multiple 512 pixels texture for the body and 256 pixels for the head. We will maybe see some 1024 textures for some maps. Sadly, (Or not?) they aimed for a "cartoon" looking based game. Don't misunderstand what I mean. Unlike SoF2, MoH:AA or RtCW which aimed for an environment as realistic as possible, EF2 doesn't target that. Sadly again, they decided to not use the lighting bump technique that was added to the Quake 3 engine 1-2 years ago. Probably due to time pressure.
Minimum Spec :
Just because you can run EF1 doesn't mean you will be able to run EF2. They expect the minimun computer requirement to be a bit higher than MoH:AA. Which means, if you can run Medal of Honor, you can expect to be able to run EF2.
U.S.S. Dallas, have been attacked.
Story :
EF1, was by most reviewers, called too short. EF2, packed on 2 CDs, is expected to be 1.5 times longer. Does that mean 2 times and a half longer or 150% of EF1? No idea. But we know it's suppose to be a lot longer. They also aimed to have a better story than EF1. Which mean a love story, which in EF1 we got only a quick look into. Triangle love between Munro, Jurot and... Someone else? Sadly, Alexandria Munro don't come back. If you remember, in EF1, you were able to play the whole game with either Alexandria or Alexander Munro. Seems that story limitation was not allowing Alexandria to come back. We also know that the EF2 story is not linear. Which means, if you take a bad decision in the game, that error will follow you. A team mate gets killed? Expect the end of the game to be harder without his help. The story begins on Voyager. If you have watched the episode "End Game", the last Voyager episode, you can understand where and when EF2 begins. Trapped in the Borg sphere, Voyager is dragged to come back to the Beta Quadrant. It's up to the Hazard team to kick some Borg ass and allow Voyager to travel to home, in the Alpha Quadrant. There, you are moved to Earth to train a new Hazard team. No more action for you, you are now a teacher! Until... Jean-Luc Picard, of the Enterprise-E asks for your help. You and your newly-trained team move to the Enterprise-E. Expect to kick some Romulan ass! New life forms to frag! New aliens are not friendly (Or at least, not all of them). You are sent on the U.S.S. Dallas, which has been attacked. You will do terrain missions, or fight on the hull of the Enterprise.
Stuck on Earth? Not for long...
Fragging Romulan...
New life forms are ugly these day.
Modification :
Like any Quake 3 based game before, EF2 will be "modable", or in other words, can be modified by the user. Custom map, models, skin, or mods will come from the EF community. However, since the tools used for creating EF2 are different from the EF1 tools, you can expect it will take some time for the community to learn how to use them correctly. Happily, Aspyr has been asked to port the Uber Tools to the Mac, which will make the first "official" Mac-based Quake 3 tools. Expect new tools, since the Uber ones allow control over the lightmap, and use a completely different file system. No more .md3 or .tga/.jpg. Tiki system is used for model and animation (See F.A.K.K. 2).
Conclusion :
This game is expected to let nobody stay neutral. The time spent on it and the team used for it allow us to predict a massive hit. Looking forward to that, a lot of EF1 users have already pre-ordered the sequel. We will see if the prediction is right in June...
U.S.S. Speed |
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