Pre-ECTS: Star Trek Away Team

Despite the number of different Star Trek games released earlier this year, Activision's Away Team will be the first squad-based tactical combat Star Trek game to date. Reminiscent of Pyro Studios' tactical combat game Commandos, Star Trek Away Team places a number of elite Federation officers under your command.

The game takes place in the Next Generation setting, is played from an isometric perspective, and uses characters that specialize in fields that include medicine, engineering, science, security, and command. Each of these skills is designed to complement the skills of the other characters, which means that players will have to use all of their crewmembers to their fullest extent in order to successfully complete each mission. Not surprisingly, stealth will play a big factor in almost all of Away Team's 18 missions, and audible and visual indicators will help you determine how much noise each of your characters is making at a glance.

While Star Trek Away Team's graphics don't use any 3D acceleration, all of the game's backgrounds have been prerendered in 3D, and look very realistic. One of the demonstrations depicted a gigantic Klingon Bird of Prey that had crash-landed onto the surface of an alien planet. The ship was so large that it didn't fit onto the screen. Some of the effects like phaser fire and beaming aboard levels were also good looking.

Star Trek Away Team isn't scheduled for release this year, but should be on store shelves early the next. In the meantime, you can take a look at our screen gallery, which has been updated with screenshots taken from Activate2000.