Star Trek isn't usually the kind of subject you would bring up in a pub when surrounded by your friends, cheers and merry thoughts turn sour, eyes gawp at your face as you mutter the immortal name through now strained lips. Such is the reason that many Trek followers would rarely expose themselves amidst the reactions they would have to endure. Despite this many of us do still partake in ritual watching of our favoured spin off from the Gene Roddenberry franchise. It is this that has lead to the expansion of what was originally a TV only series into Games and yet more Spin off's from the original.

In a galaxy far away, Paramount, senselessly pleased by the success of the original and the now more popular, Star Trek: The Next Generation, created yet another spin-off entitled Voyager. Heralded as the show that would bring back the feel from the original series and overcome the disappointments brought on by Deep Space Nine, Voyager set out to set the record strait. Despite initial audiences being somewhat chocked by the early episodes, after a couple of years the series has really started to take off. Story lines have depth. Battle sequences appear with insane irregularity. Neelix still needs to be shot as soon as possible. Still it's now a very watch able series, one of the first Trek series that has truly set itself in the right position to be made into a shoot-em-up style game, ala Quake.

Make it so!

Raven, as many of you will know, play their hearts very close to ID Software and as such usually manage to gain exclusive access to their latest technology. In this case rather than do yet another medieval blaster, they have opted to take the Quake3 engine and use it for a Trek game. As such, 'Elite Force' is set to become the very first Trek based FPS style game, a landmark, which quickly causes us to swim in our own drool. Raven haven't simply opted for any old blaster, they have taken the Half-Life concept to a whole new level. Adding one of the most advanced AI systems so far, combining that with Re-Done special effects and then modelling the entire ship to exact detail. Always being the ones to best exploit the capabilities of a new engine, Raven are bound to take the curved surface concept to the next level as well.

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