Star Trek Away Team Impressions

Recently, GameSpot got to see Activision's upcoming squad-based tactical strategy game, Star Trek Away Team. It is a game that draws strong inspiration from Eidos' hit Commandos, and promises much of the same puzzle-oriented, tactical gameplay, but set in the Star Trek universe. Away Team uses the Next Generation license, and focuses on a new threat to the peace of the Federation-Klingon-Romulan political triangle. These three races, plus the Borg, are at the center of the game's story and all suffering from some mysterious infection, unleashed upon them by either new factions within their ranks or by an entirely new group of villains. We won't know the answer to this mystery until the game ships in March of 2001.

You get to manage a team of elite special operatives working for the Federation. After a few routine missions, you get sucked into this plot to infect the key players of the Star Trek universe and must journey along a multi-mission campaign to uncover the truth behind the troubles. Your special ops crew is composed of a little over a dozen members, who are split between the five specialties of command, security, medicine, engineering, and science. In each mission, you will pick four or six team members - the exact number has yet to be decided - to beam to the mission location and complete your mission objectives. If Activision decides to pare down the number of crewmembers you control to four, it will be because it wants to make controlling your overall team easier and more manageable.

Each crew member will have different strengths. The security officer, for instance, has the most weapons and is the best fighter, using a wide array of weapons that include rifles, concussion grenades, proximity mines, and more. The medic can of course heal your people, but also has an instant death attack, the neural spray, which is similar to the instant-kill knife attack in Commandos. The engineering officer has lots of neat gadgets, including a teleportation device and a stasis field generator, while the science officer also has specialized equipment, like a personal cloaking field and a hologram projector. In some missions, one specific crew member could be key; for instance, you might have to repair the warp core of a ship with the engineer, so he will be required on your team and will have to survive to the mission's conclusion.

The game is still seven or so months away from completion. We got a good look at the game, and its various levels, including the Klingon moon of Qo'nos, the jungles of Betazed, Starfleet headquarters on Earth, and more. Look for a preliminary preview in the coming weeks, and a more in-depth preview after that. In the meantime, here are some exclusive screens from Activision.