The dagger can also be thrown, which is a very effective and quiet way to kill a guard before you’re seen. Like the light saber in Jedi Knight, these have variable attacks linked to footwork, so you can slash, stab, and do a couple other combo moves. Klingon Honor Guard almost makes up for some of its failings with the D’k Tahg dagger and the Bat’leth sword. Unreal artificial intelligence takes a step backwards in most instances as most enemies put up a decent fight most of the time, but sometimes just stand in the corner and sulk until dead. The only interesting critters are the Lethian (who blends into the background and has a Mind Sear attack), the Predator-like Nausican, and an ice-cave beast called the Ro’peD. Enemies consists of four types of Klingon, two Andorians (the blue guys with the antennae), robots, and animals like the BireQT, Targ, and guard dog. Too many appear to “skate” through the levels, barely touching the floor. One of the few effective visual effects is the enemy “melt-down” - when you hit someone with a huge bolt of firepower, he kinda melts.Ĭreature animations are variable, and not particularly fluid. It’s also laid on in flat textures, so that in several places it floats above or beside the wall or floor upon which it is supposed to be spilled. The bright pink blood of the Klingons may be accurate in the milieu, but frankly looks pretty silly.
Underwater regions have a tendency to show huge seams. Textures are largely drab and uninteresting, and add little to the Unreal experience. Compounding this problem is the rather flat, and sometimes downright incompetent, art direction. Nothing much goes on in any of them, and after a while they all begin to blend together. None of the levels are particularly interesting. The mission requires you to pass back and forth between various hubs of an illogically designed prison, yet, the hubs are devoid of any strong, distinguishing features as a result, you might find yourself wasting an extra hour on unnecessary wandering.
Only the ice planet really captures that Unreal feeling of large spaces, and the accompanying prison level is one of the most maddeningly confusing I’ve encountered in an action game. Aesthetically they rival but never really surpass those of Unreal. The Bird of Prey and the space station have interesting moments, including some slightly larger vistas than the rest of the game. There are 25 “levels,” but that’s counting levels within a world that are merely continuations of previous levels. Mission areas include an icy planet, a Klingon village, a Bird of Prey, a space station, a prison, and others. The game itself is adequate in most areas, but nothing you haven’t already seen in Unreal. It all just feels so cheap, or rushed if you want to be charitable. The briefings are similarly under-animated images with badly dubbed voice-overs. In fact, about two-thirds of the introduction is grainy stock footage of bubbling lava (which I presume is standing in for the Klingon home planet), and the rest are cartoonishly rendered still images with minute in-frame animations. The entire, over-long introductory sequence is devoid of slick animation or even in-game scripted scenes. The introduction and briefings are sub-par. You’re ordered to track down the assassins and given short briefings before each mission. The story (set in Star Trek: The Next Generation) begins when your training sequence is interrupted by an assassination attempt on the Klingon leader, Gowron. Federation-spanning action with multiple planets and life-forms and a wide visual palette could’ve propelled the game to the heights of the genre, yet all these are lacking in Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard.
But for a full-priced, widely hyped title from a major publisher, it’s a major disappointment.Ĭonsidering the rich vein of Klingon and Trek lore that could have been mined, the narrow, conventional storyline and mission structure hardly fulfills the potential of the source material. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and indeed such a game will be self-recommending to Trek fans regardless of its particulars. With Klingon Honor Guard MicroProse has taken Epic’s powerful Unreal technology, with its flexible editor and superb scripting capabilities – and done little more than remake Unreal with Klingons.