AI

Enemy AI wasn't much to talk about. Most of the time, the enemy couldn't hit worth a hill of beans. If you were circle strafing, they have no chance in hell. There were quite a few hallways where I just backed up a bit and waited for the slow moving fools to walk through the doorway. I didn't move one inch, all I did was tap the attack button every few seconds to kill whatever stepped through. I'm sure the difficulty settings have some effect on this, but aside from getting less health and ammo we didn't really notice much of a difference. The only troublesome aspect to the enemies is that they always tend to teleport in from wherever. This means that they end up in front of, behind you, all around you. To top it off your buddies randomly yell out, "Behind you!" When in fact, my back was to a wall. Those lying bastards.

Practice time

I think he doesn't know that he is fated to lose

So how were the enemies themselves? As is the case with Star Trek, they were truly unique. Some you will expect, i.e. the Borg and Klingons. Others will be totally new to most of you, and some of you might dig back through the years and recall some pretty cool stuff. Each new scenario brings two or three new types of characters into play. Definitely not a bad mix; not to repetitive, probably just right.

Ow	Transporter room

Friendlies?

So where did all this AI energy go to? To tell you the truth, I think all the friendly NPC's had all the brain in the game. The last game we reviewed that had some sort of computer-controlled squad following you around was Daikatana. That is the perfect example of what not to do when, among other things, creating NPC's that follow you around. Superfly was quite possibly one the most patience-taxing, keyboard breaking, characters ever thought up. Thankfully NPC management in Elite Force was good enough to allow you to have three people that tagged along on all the away missions. My experiences were not those of my angst filled FS brother. The biggest problem I ran into with the characters occurred while boarding elevators. Generally, they would just amble along and get on; I lost, at most, a few seconds of my life.

Strike a pose

Energize

My little buddies rarely got in the line of fire while vaporizing baddies. The few times they did, either I rued the day that I pelted them with a proton torpedo, or they got a real bad whooping. Both resulted in the same conclusion - reload the level. If you gave Chell one to many love taps, he and the rest of the crew would open fire on you in a wholesale manner. A few times I got pissed and wiped out the lot of 'em, although I think I did that more just to see what would happen as a result.