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Wish there was a remaster/remake...


AlexMcpherson79

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Of the various Star Trek games I've had, I'd wish a few got a remake, or at least 'Remaster' (though with how tech has progressed, it would pretty much just be a remake)

 

When I first got into gaming in general, it was through star wars and star trek. All of Activision's Star Trek titles, really. Armada I and II for my fleet battling needs. Away Team for the same but 'control a team'. I actually did like that game. Bridge Commander... oh all the skirmishes with downloaded ships. but never multiplayer online because I didn't have broadband, just a 33k modem, and this was back when Telewest/NTL (Not Virgin Media) in the UK had '500 kb broadband' as their middle-tier broadband package - when I finally got broadband with them, it was the bottom package at 250kbps... and ten years later, it had shot up to ** 60 megabit/sec ** (yep, 240x the speed from start to finish)

 

And then there was this game.

Voyager: Elite Force.

An FPS to be sure, but it still felt somewhat true to star trek, or at least, Voyager. The sequel, did not.

 

The premise to justify it actually kind of makes sense: Voyager is after all far from the federation and has no reinforcements, so for all the situations they end up in, surely they would have decided to train security teams to handle combat freeing the 'main characters' for the plot points or whatever... and sometimes end up in situations where combat on the personnel level instead of ship-level is required in spades. And since it was set at the end of season 6, and the show featured Crewman Chell who is a MEMBER OF THE TEAM, surely they could have used the hazard team in the show for season 7? ('Workforce' would have made a brilliant point to show the game as even just semi-canon, with the Hazard Team rescuing the group.)

 

Of course, the show is over, and were the game to be remade, keeping the story as is but maybe adding in a few little bits to 'fill in the blanks', maybe a small amount of retooling, and suddenly a few "plot holes" from the show overall could be fixed too.

 

From a remake that doubles as a 'remaster' (except, you know, built from the ground-up, instead of just taking old files and adding detail) there are a few things I'd expect:

 

It's a remaster, so use the opportunity to bring it graphically up to modern standards. Without removing the ability to crouch and jump on demand, and not favouring automatic cover. Seriously don't like that.

Like the Weapons: First of all, while the "blocky" version of the phaser rifle looks sorta sweet, the rounded version is the only one actually seen on Voyager, as well as the only one seen firing on screen both voyager, and in the films. do not recall if either design for ds9's appearance of the type 3.

 

Add in the Compression Rifle, with the Type 3 Phaser Rifle as the Hazard Team's choice of weapon, and since Voyager doesn't have many have all been assigned to Hazard Operations not long before the start of the game, with the more abundant, bulkier and not as powerful Compression Rifle as Voyagers' regular rifle from then on.

Maybe a line from Chakotay 'Maybe now your regular security officers wont be fighting over who gets a pulse rifle and who gets a compression rifle, Tuvok?' 'Indeed, that was my thinking.' HAHA! also fills in the prop-hole in-universe of why they aren't seen after season 5, and doubling as why they seemingly were introduced in season 3 - Les Foster found the prototype design in the database and together with Tuvok and B'Elanna, managed to create a dozen before they ran out of necessary can't-replicate material for them, or some other reason to make them scarce enough for it? In other words - Voyager didn't have them in storage for two years.

 

Redesign the Scavenger rifle. It's still the scavenger rifle, but now actually looks like two weapons 'stitched together' - the 'shotgun' looking part replaced by a pair of klingon disrupters, maybe? Sort of becoming a gattling gun/grenade launcher cross? This would allow for the Hirogen's weapon to be changed to the canon rifle from the show, conveniently slotting into the slot that the Scavenger Rifle takes.

 

Stasis Rifle would just get a cosmetic 'touch up', happy with the design otherwise.

 

The Grenade Launcher... well it would fire tiny ones not massive rounds bigger than the barrel.

 

Photon Burst... would not be 'starfleet' weapon, not in the typical sense. Maybe it's what they get from the mirror universe constitution? And the design maybe take cues from EF2's Quantum Launcher, instead of looking like a 'BFG Wannabe'.

 

Arc welder, like the stasis rifle, looks good asis.

 

And the I-Mod... do NOT go for EF2's. VEF's looks MUCH better, so that with, more cosmetic 'touch up' of detail also.

 

And maybe add the Tricorder properly, as the only way to activate some controls, or something like that. As a scanning mechanic for finding hidden controls though. Not as a "use this to do pipe and wavy-line puzzles' which was more 'WTF?'

 

Obviously, character models would get a massive boost, and use the opportunity to stick true to VEF's FPS mechanics without looking horrible like EF2.

 

Voyager Tour, yeah you're getting an all in one level touch, maybe. Hell, one map for the game pretty much had the same amount of whatevers (polys and distance to walk and detail etcetera) as all the tour mode levels put together, in one map. Asteroid base or something. Just, not good for holomatches.

 

And no more lone-wolf Munro. He's in a squad, lets make it feel like it.

 

And of course... VR!

 

Now, as a remake, story changes?

Not big strokes, little ones like... the game having a prologue and five 'acts'.

The Prologue... is basically setting up the concept of the Hazard Team and rough backstory, getting the player used to controls and so on.

So two small missions, on the aeroshuttle, maybe during season 2. The team currently have compression rifles, but then during the mission, Foster rematerializes his gun... the Type 3, and finds it more effective, even if its just 'easier to use and aim'. Also, the 'scope' acts as such, the little display behind the torch acting as an aim-assist screen/scanner?

First mission, Foster himself is giving the orders. "Ramirez, Breach the door. Ramerez, provide cover fire!'. Wait. Not call of duty. "Munro, Watch it! Munro, I'm too busy right now. Maybe later?"

Couldn't resist.

It's a pair of tutorial levels in disguise, basically. The first for controls, objectives, basic gameplay mechanics from using the hand phaser as a cutting tool and last-stand no-more-ammo weapon since it regenerates, the compression rifle as a high-power weapon (despite it not being as 'easy to use', in the game this means the bulk makes it hard to aim fast and lack of actual sights to aim. Munro 'hasn't used one much' unlike members of security or the main cast from the show), and a few other things. Then the second for squad gameplay mechanics, giving orders, and so on.

 

Then the game skips a few years. Seven of Nine is aboard, and helping Foster, Tuvok and B'Elanna make the I-Mod, only its a prototype. Munro is leader of the Hazard Team's Beta squad, and Hazard Operations has now expanded to three teams - Alpha, Beta, Gamma.

 

Alpha is Foster's team, with Mitchell Csatlos as Scout/2IC, Kendrick Biessman as his (Assault) Weapons Specialist,and Juliet Jurot as science/medic.

 

Beta is Munro's, with Telsia Murphy as his 'sniper'/2IC, Austin Chang as his (Demolitions) Weapons Specialist, and Chell as technician. And also as a cook when the team get to spend a few days away from voyager, or whenever any of the team want to avoid Neelix' cooking. They like his Red Alert Chilli. ;)

 

Gamma is the stealthy element. Jeffrey Nelson, Command, Elizabeth Laird, Scout/2IC, Michael Jaworski, Scout. Thomas Odell, Weapons Specialist, Kenn Lathrop, Intelligence. And of course, Perfecto Oviedo acts as thew Quartermaster of Hazard Operations, while being perfectly as capable as any of the others if all-hands-on-deck are required.

A third mission that rounds out Act One is to retrieve parts necessary for the I-Mod, and Gamma Team failed to do so. The location? An Hirogen station. Munro expresses the wish that they were aboard 'last time hirogen were around' as he'd have liked to get his hands on one of their rifles. Their pilot is cross though - the Gamma team were aboard voyager at the time and had been caught up in the holodeck simulations, and still a little upset that Alpha and Beta squad didn't know anything had happened until they returned from a 'hunting trip' of their own. (Voyager had been going slow since the Aeroshuttle doesn't have high-warp capacity, otherwise they'd have outran the hirogen ships that captured the ship.)

 

The same basic story from then on (with the holodeck training mission replaced obviously by the prologue, so there's no BORG yet.)

 

the Five Acts are all mostly one of the main missions: Act One is the Etherian ship, Act Two is the Scavenger Base, Act Three is the Borg Cube, Act Four is the Gunship, and Act Five is the Forge. Defence of the ship from the Scavengers comes in act one before the etherian ship, act two is basically briefing, prep work, some stuff, then the scavenger base and ends with Foster out of action and beaming back to Voyager. Three is... from that point, the cube, and returning and the ship getting powered up. Four reveals the incoming alien ship, the gunship, and failing to destroy the alien ship. Five is the time arriving in the middle of the ship being invaded, with the voyager crew only just managing to hold off the bugs, using the alien ship to sneak about the forge etcetera. Munro's boss battle ends with the Aeroshuttle picking him up while the nimbler Delta Flyer holds back some scavengers who are trying for the forge before it blows up (courtesy of Gamma team, off-screen), because defeating the boss didn't automatically trigger a self destruct and there is no big red button next to said boss.

 

Also, the boss batlte isn't munro on his own, but his whole team (Beta squad) supporting him while large numbers of enemies attack.

 

Anyone think of other slight changes for a remake/remaster?

 

Well, aside from the obvious, like 'Actually runs without issue on windows 7/8/10', or a console port (PS4 and XBOX One) being easy because the controls would actually be easily mapped to a controller, with mass-effect-like control of inventory/squad commands, though I'm thinking of a simpler thing like, pointing the crosshairs at a point, and getting context-sensitive things like 'Chell open the door' or 'Chang Blow the door open' (both would be options with 'a' or 'b' selectable? :D Chell for stealth, open a door without alerting computers. Chang, demolish it so computers and people nearby scream bloody murder.

 

Also, the Etherians would be a little bit cross if he did that. And of course, point at an enemy and tap one of the two context-sensitive buttons for option a) telsia, snipe this guy, or option b) Chang, lob a grenade at this guy. so not like Mass Effect - since there are three not two people following you. Maybe the D-pad? Up: squad. Left: Teslia, Right: Chang, Down: Chell. Context sensitive for move/attack/use ? Point beside door: move/-into cover, at door: this person opens it. at enemy: attack. at friendly: heal.

left and right bumpers then can be used for specific actions or something. Say, alternate fire for weapon on one, items or powers on the other (command-wheel style or 'equipped' item. (Example: deploy portable shield generator, activate cloak, activate 'jet pack', 'use' single-charge shield booster. A would be jump, B crouch, X Use terminal/pickup item, Hold Y for Tricorder, double-tap for Type II phaser, single tap to switch back to last held main weapon/switch to other main weapon. Left trigger: 'Iron sights', right: fire. Menu screen to select from inventory for such, since there is no halo-style limit to three weapons here.

 

On PC, Keyboard would still allow selecting items/powers/weapons without going into the menu screen, and scroll-wheel to cycle weapons. T for tricorder, H for hypospray and so on.

 

 

eh, I'm just being nostalgic on a system that doesn't like playing the game. (keeps crashing. Q3A is an OLD engine.)

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