# Star Trek Elite Force: mixed feelings



## symphonix (Feb 5, 2003)

Early this week, I purchased my first Mac game. I'm not much of a gamer, but I do like to be able to blow things up from time to time. And so, on finding Star Trek Voyager Elite Force at a good price, I thought it would be fun to try out.

My impressions of the games design, gameplay and interface are that this is a truly wonderful creation and a lot of effort has gone into making it exciting and fun. The flow of the story and the cinematics alone make it essential for any trekkie.
However, there were a lot of problems that simply shocked me. The first of these was the CD Key.
Now, not being much of a gamer, I've only ever had to enter a key for one game before: Starcraft. At the time I remember wondering how long it would be before all the game publishers were using CD keys.
It generally doesn't worry me as long as it doesn't interfere too much with legitimate players. But in this case, Aspyr had mucked up severely. The key I entered *did not work* and on visiting their site I learned that they had misprinted almost all of the CD-Keys. They suggested I prepend a "CD-" at the start and change all the J's to T's. It still didn't work. I then tried a CD-key they had provided on their own support site (!!!) and it still didn't work.

The other thing was the update patches. Since I really didn't fancy rebooting into classic to play a game, I decided to look for an update patch. The official page did not make any mention of the update patch, and a search on version-tracker found that there were two updates out, though the VT links pointed back to the official page.
A bit of hunting around allowed me to dig up a patch from a third-party server, though this only patched the multiplayer game, and I still have to boot into classic to play the single-player game.

This isn't the last of it either. The time taken to load a level can exceed five minutes. While I'm sure a faster system than my iBook 500 would make level-loading more bearable, the minimum requirements quoted are for a G3-266, so I would think I should get bearable, though not fantastic, performance. I now realise that the minimum requirements quoted by Aspyr are not only unrealistic, they're downright _fantasy._ 
The botmatch mode simply did not work on my machine, with or without the patch. The levels would load with no bots, no powerups and in CTF levels no flags. There are no errors in the logs that I can see to explain this odd behaviour.

What I had hoped for would be a little fun on my Mac; I wasn't expecting the sort of graphics or performance that a hardcore gamer wants. What I got was a fantastic game with a brilliant design, that felt as if it had been rushed out the door without any quality control by a company that really didn't care about maintaining products for their customers.

I will be doing a lot more research before I buy another game.


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## RacerX (Feb 5, 2003)

I have both the original game and the expansion pack (which comes with a Carbon version of the game) and have had no problems with either of the serial numbers that they came with. My system uses a G3/350, ATI Rage 128 w/ 8 MB of VRAM, and 384 MB of RAM.

I haven't played the game much lately, but though I remember the levels taking a long time to load, 5 minutes seems longer than what I have had to wait for. Originally while getting through the game (Classic version) I used a disk image of the CD in place of the physical CD. Still, even when playing the expansion pack in Mac OS X off the CD (I had deleted the image when I had gotten through the game a few times) I never waited 5 minutes.

Considering all that and what you said about the serial number problem, it sounds like you may have gotten a bad CD. I'm sure that if you contacted someone at Aspyr, they would be happy to replace it (Graphic Simulations replaced my copy of _Hellcats Over the Pacific_ when the original floppy died).

I suggest that before buying a game, try the demo. I ran the demo of Elite Forces before I got the game, and was happy with the original before buying the expansion pack. I had demos of Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear, Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Ghost Recon and others before I was willing to put my money on the table for any of the full versions. Seeing a game running on someone elses system doesnt tell you how it is going to work on your system... but demos can do a good job of that.


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## symphonix (Feb 6, 2003)

Thanks, RacerX. I will try your suggestion of making a disk image and see if that improves load times. I had not tried the demo as I am on a dial-up link, but I had tried Quake 3 on an identical system at the Apple Store, and it ran quite nicely.
If I can correct the slow-loading problem, it will be a great game. I'm currently up to the level where you meet the Hirogen hunter, and am getting repeatedly toasted. After waiting 6 minutes to play the level, then getting killed in 6 seconds, then loading the level again ... you get the picture. Thanks, RacerX.


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## RacerX (Feb 6, 2003)

I know exactly where you are at. It took me a while to get around him too. The Hirogen hunter takes a few seconds between shots. If you can hide behind a box while he is shooting and pop out to take a couple shots at him yourself, you can get past that level.

Oh, when you are done, remember to go and get his gun... it is very helpful later on.


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## symphonix (Feb 6, 2003)

Thanks, RacerX. I made a disk image and the load time is now down from 5+ minutes to 1:40, which is much better.
So, I think I must have a bad CD, and I'll be sending it to Aspyr for exchange.

Thanks for the tip.


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## Silock@CSi (Mar 4, 2003)

> _Originally posted by symphonix _
> *Thanks, RacerX. I will try your suggestion of making a disk image and see if that improves load times. I had not tried the demo as I am on a dial-up link, but I had tried Quake 3 on an identical system at the Apple Store, and it ran quite nicely.
> If I can correct the slow-loading problem, it will be a great game. I'm currently up to the level where you meet the Hirogen hunter, and am getting repeatedly toasted. After waiting 6 minutes to play the level, then getting killed in 6 seconds, then loading the level again ... you get the picture. Thanks, RacerX. *



Elite Force is a GREAT game.  I never had the load time problems, though :-/

The storyline is great up until the very end, where it started to get really cheesy.  Halo pulled that ending off much better, IMO.


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## symphonix (Mar 4, 2003)

It is a fantastic game ... the load time troubles are much improved even after simply copying the CD to a blank and running from that, so it was probably a media failure.
That said, it is a game I'd recommend to any Trekkie. Well thought out, well researched and a lot of fun.


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## wyvern (Mar 5, 2003)

I found the best weapon for that Hirogen guy was the charged-up phaser. I think you can shoot through the floor, too. So, just find a spot underneath him and fire away


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## a2daj (Mar 8, 2003)

Did you do a full install of the game?  If you do a full install, you should only need the CD to start the game.  Nothing would load off the CD and everything would load off your HD.  I do full installs with all of my games.  Highly recommended!


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## RacerX (Mar 8, 2003)

> _Originally posted by wyvern _
> *I found the best weapon for that Hirogen guy was the charged-up phaser. I think you can shoot through the floor, too. So, just find a spot underneath him and fire away  *



What's the sport in that????


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