[Review] Star Trek Elite Force
Apr. 10th, 2005 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAre you familiar with the principle of first sale? First sale is a legal principle that basically says that once you've paid money for something, that "something" is yours to legally transfer to another person. This is the principle behind used books. Publishers tried to get used book stores outlawed, but the principle of first sale states that you have the right to transfer (rather than duplicate) "the ability to read that story" to someone else.
Software companies have been trying to outlaw first sale through licensing agreements. Basically, you buy the license and it becomes non-transferable. Microsoft does this with Windows XP, and people have reported first sale problems with Worlds of Warcraft, City of Heroes, and Half Life 2.
Part of their excuse is that they don't want the games to be playable "forever" because they don't want the overhead of having to tell people "we don't support that game anymore." But I think some small part of it in this Internet age is that, with the compression of time factor, developers twenty years from now don't want some bozo who found an old CD at some tottering dolt's garage sale to take it home, only to email the developer an hour later and say, "Remember this game you wasted your life developing back in your mid-20s? Well it SUCKED!"
Who wants that kind of memory?
I write this because this must be how the developers of Star Trek: Elite Force must feel. Take the very worst aspects of Star Trek Voyager: the brusque and incomprehensible technobabble, the political correctness marred by senseless violence, the way the writers thought that sarcasm and irritating banality could be endearing character traits. Now, combine those with the very worst aspects of a three-dimensional shooter: trivial spatial puzzles that insult your intelligence, the meaningless piling on of violence, and the poorly-drawn characters. There, you have Star Trek: Elite Force. I don't care that it's the Quake 3 engine, it was never meant for accurate machinimatics; Janeway's helmet hair is taken to absurd literal heights, Torres really does have a lobster on her head, and SevenOfNine is reduced (or more accurately, enhanced) to some steroid-taken East German female wrestler who has eyes (and a chest, oh the insanity!) as flat as Wilma Flinstone's and the hair of a chemotherapy patient. Only The Doctor looks convincing, but you barely whiz by him as you take on a group of the stoopidest boading pirates you've ever seen; all you have to do is run past them at high speed and then shoot them all in the backs as they're too dumb to turn around.
At least I only paid $1.50 for it at a garage sale. The opening movie is a rehash of the opening theme, and it's nicely done, and it was probably my favorite sequence in the whole series.
Software companies have been trying to outlaw first sale through licensing agreements. Basically, you buy the license and it becomes non-transferable. Microsoft does this with Windows XP, and people have reported first sale problems with Worlds of Warcraft, City of Heroes, and Half Life 2.
Part of their excuse is that they don't want the games to be playable "forever" because they don't want the overhead of having to tell people "we don't support that game anymore." But I think some small part of it in this Internet age is that, with the compression of time factor, developers twenty years from now don't want some bozo who found an old CD at some tottering dolt's garage sale to take it home, only to email the developer an hour later and say, "Remember this game you wasted your life developing back in your mid-20s? Well it SUCKED!"
Who wants that kind of memory?
I write this because this must be how the developers of Star Trek: Elite Force must feel. Take the very worst aspects of Star Trek Voyager: the brusque and incomprehensible technobabble, the political correctness marred by senseless violence, the way the writers thought that sarcasm and irritating banality could be endearing character traits. Now, combine those with the very worst aspects of a three-dimensional shooter: trivial spatial puzzles that insult your intelligence, the meaningless piling on of violence, and the poorly-drawn characters. There, you have Star Trek: Elite Force. I don't care that it's the Quake 3 engine, it was never meant for accurate machinimatics; Janeway's helmet hair is taken to absurd literal heights, Torres really does have a lobster on her head, and SevenOfNine is reduced (or more accurately, enhanced) to some steroid-taken East German female wrestler who has eyes (and a chest, oh the insanity!) as flat as Wilma Flinstone's and the hair of a chemotherapy patient. Only The Doctor looks convincing, but you barely whiz by him as you take on a group of the stoopidest boading pirates you've ever seen; all you have to do is run past them at high speed and then shoot them all in the backs as they're too dumb to turn around.
At least I only paid $1.50 for it at a garage sale. The opening movie is a rehash of the opening theme, and it's nicely done, and it was probably my favorite sequence in the whole series.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 09:26 am (UTC)Now on the other hand if you want to try out a shooter that was a fantastic implementation of the license from there very beginning right up until mere seconds before then end boss (yeah Monolith products will do that...), get your hands on Tron 2.0. Your current music selection was what prompted this actually. The game is spot on to the flavor of Tron while in several ways advancing the mythos and craft that the original started.
What really made this game a treat for me was the understanding that the concept has matured along with those who originally watched it in the theaters. Back then computers were magic to all but a few people, there for the movie had that flavor, of being a kind of magic. Now that we've all grown up (or in some cases older) that mystery has been replaced by empowering knowledge and the magic isn’t enough anymore. Monolith understood that. The game is rife with techno babble, slang, and the most wonderful references. The big baddie for the early portion of the game is an over aggressive security protocol known as the Kernel for example. A weapon that acts as a sniper rifle for all intents and purposes is called an LOL.
And the locations! A legacy mainframe, the Internet, a PDA, the inside of a firewall, and one of my personal favorites; the receiving end of a complete system format! The game bleeds style and as a fellow geek you're shooting yourself in the foot by not at least checking out the demo (doesn’t really give a very good taste of it unfortunately). Listen if you get it and don’t like it feel free to call me a host of dirty unpronounceable words in your journal but don’t pass this one up!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 09:39 am (UTC)and 'the kernel' as a security protocol? maybe if it were the ipchain it'd be clever, but the kernel? *shrug*
that aside, i think elf likes tron2.0 .. even with the bugs :)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-12 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 09:27 am (UTC)Now on the other hand if you want to try out a shooter that was a fantastic implementation of the license from there very beginning right up until mere seconds before then end boss (yeah Monolith products will do that...), get your hands on Tron 2.0. Your current music selection was what prompted this actually. The game is spot on to the flavor of Tron while in several ways advancing the mythos and craft that the original started.
What really made this game a treat for me was the understanding that the concept has matured along with those who originally watched it in the theaters. Back then computers were magic to all but a few people, there for the movie had that flavor, of being a kind of magic. Now that we've all grown up (or in some cases older) that mystery has been replaced by empowering knowledge and the magic isn’t enough anymore. Monolith understood that. The game is rife with techno babble, slang, and the most wonderful references. The big baddie for the early portion of the game is an over aggressive security protocol known as the Kernel for example. A weapon that acts as a sniper rifle for all intents and purposes is called an LOL.
And the locations! A legacy mainframe, the Internet, a PDA, the inside of a firewall, and one of my personal favorites; the receiving end of a complete system format! The game bleeds style and as a fellow geek you're shooting yourself in the foot by not at least checking out the demo (doesn’t really give a very good taste of it unfortunately). Listen if you get it and don’t like it feel free to call me a host of dirty unpronounceable words in your journal but don’t pass this one up!
-D