Top Secret Klingon Honor Guard

Klingon Honor Guard is the first new game to use the Unreal graphics engine and the first Star Trek FPS.

You assume the role of a lowly Klingon who is trying to become one of the few ,the grumpy, the Honor Guard. The game start with you in a holo-deck simulation but quickly turns into a quest to save the empire from evil forces. It seems that someone has made a grab for power in the Empire and it's up to you to make it right. So get ready to face some truly grumpy foes.

This is the first Star Trek FPS and it captures the Star Trek universe very well. At least the Klingon side of things. Some other creatures from the Star Trek universe pop up now and then too.

You have a good choice of weapons to help you along in your quest and they are all pure Klingon. From the D'k Tahg and Bat'leth to the more potent Particle Dispersal Cannon. The weapons are interesting and very star treky. The hand to hand weapons are more powerful than you might think and take a bit of skill to use properly. Weapon balance seems good with all weapons having a alternate fire mode. The D'k Tahg (knife) can be thrown for instance, this adds a nice twist to those stuck without a good weapon in multiplayer deathmatch.

The levels are big and sometimes complex but they lack polish and flair. They seem to be lacking the little details that some other games offer in level design. Some of the levels are not very pretty but all are playable. The multiplayer levels are simple and a bit small but do the job.

Make my day buddy.

Come on, I'll take you all on!

The game uses the state of the art Unreal graphics engine and the graphics are what you would expect from it.

The effects are good but not overdone. They seem to missing the little touches that would have made this game great.

The in game movies are nice and help move the story along. The voice acting is top notch and they use some of the voices of actors from the various Star Trek TV shows. The story is a story of sorts, and that is a nice change from the lack of stories in FPS today. As in all FPS, it's really not necessary but still nice to have.

The Botmatch is fun and a great way to practice multi-player games. I did not test this game in multiplayer as I could not find any servers running on the net at the time of the review. So all I say about multiplayer is based on Botmatch.

One thing I did not like about the Multi-payer is the weapons are everywhere and too easy to find. Part of the fun of multi player is trying to track down a weapon before your opponent.

One would hope that the Internet play has been fixed up since the game is based on the Unreal engine.

A low end system will have choppy performance in a regular game and VERY choppy play in Botmatch. You also need a 3D card to truly get the full effect of the engine.

If you have the system to run it and your a Star Trek nut, go buy this game. If you like first person shooters, give it a try.

Company:
MicroProse
www.microprose.com

Category:

3D Shooter

NOTES:

Interest: 88%
Maniability : 90%
Graphics: 94%
Sound : 94%
Originality : 85%

TOTAL : 92%

Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95/98

Processor:
Pentium 166MHz or better

Memory:
32 MB of RAM

Hard Drive:
250 MB

Sound Card:
Windows compatible sound card

Video:
2MB SVGA video card 3D Accelerator highly recommended

Matthew Dussault

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