Star Trek Elite Force 2 (Activision, PC M15+)

Star Trek lost me somewhere along the way as it moved not-so-boldly from the boyish Captain Kirk to the cultured Jean-Luc Picard. It's still a sci-fi show, but not as we older Trekkies knew it.

But if some of us are a few light years behind the play, and thought that Star Trek: Nemesis was best consigned to a black hole, we can take solace in the Star Trek games.

They are usually of a high standard, and accurately reflect the characters and content of the show.

Star Trek Elite Force 2 is no exception, and will be a must for all Trekkies and anyone in the market for a good-value action game.

The game begins where Elite Force 1 ended, on a Borg sphere. You play Alex Munro, a character from the show. Your first mission is to disable Borg force fields that are stopping Voyager from escaping.

This acts as a training mission, where you learn to use the Tricorder, a space-age mobile phone that acts as a GPS, communication device and radar, showing you whether life forms in the immediate vicinity are friendly or hostile.

You also have a hazard suit which protects you from enemy fire and provides the power you need to use your weapons.

The greater the firepower or level of armour, the quicker the battery drains and careful management is needed.

Like most action games, you begin with standard weapons.

The most basic is the phaser, which never runs out of power, but you work up to ones such as a compression rifle, which can be used to fire rapid bursts or one devastating blast, and the infinity modulator, which is the game's BFG.

The hard-core fragger's weapon of choice, the good old shotgun, makes an appearance despite seeming out of place in a galactic setting.

The game's strong point is its depth. The single-player mode is satisfyingly long, with far more depth than Elite Force 1. As well as blasting Borgs and other enemy races from the TV series, you have to use your brain, too, and solve puzzles such as piecing together broken circuit boards, just like Scotty used to do.

When you've clocked the missions, you can play skirmish games against AI characters or go online and take on real players in a variety of modes.

The graphics are generated by the latest version of the Quake 3 engine, which has been tweaked specifically for this game.

It is not the newest technology, but the game looks good with realistic faces that show expression, and excellent shadows and lighting effects.

The soundtrack is good, too, and adds a lot of life to the game.

* Email Peter Eley