.com You are a member of the Klingon Honor Guard, and your duty as the most skilled combat specialist in the galaxy is to protect the Klingon Empire from an assassination attempt on Gowron, leader of the Klingon High Council. Review Klingon Honor Guard is essentially an average shooter using Star Trek as a backdrop. The premise is that you're a trainee in the Klingon Honor Guard, when the High Council suddenly gets bombed. Since you're the new guy, you can't be a part of the traitorous conspiracy, so you're sent out to avenge the honor of the slain council members. The game is divided up into 28 levels divided among 20 units. At first, the gameplay seems goal based, like Jedi Knight, but it's in fact more of the key-hunting monotony of past shooters. No matter what, you always end up hunting down some item, whether it's a palm print or a retinal scan, to open some door, which gets you closer to the last room, which signals the end of the level. In between the units are video briefings, which do a good job of laying out your objective. But because of limitations of the Unreal engine, the videos always play in a separate window, putting your computer on window-swapping mayhem whenever a briefing pops up. Don't even bother with viewing the introduction, because it's Klingon History 101, using stiff animations combined with stock footage of volcanoes, and it's a real yawner. The level design in the early part of the game is lackluster but gets better as the game progresses. I was about to dismiss the game by the second level, but luckily, as I played some more, I was rewarded with some really interesting design later on. You get to tour locales such as the Rure Penthe prison that was seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a space station, and even a Klingon Bird of Prey (both inside and out). The later levels show off the Unreal engine's color and aesthetics, and were laid out in a logical fashion and utilized some interesting triggers (such as a prison riot). The enemy design doesn't progress as nicely though. The Klingons replace the Skaarj, which means you basically fight the same Klingons over and over, except they change clothing and weapons depending on where you fight them. They retain the dodging maneuvers of Unreal's Skaarj, and they also "play dead" at times. The levels are also more populated here than in Unreal, so you face a lot of Klingons, which got a bit tiresome for me. The other enemies include your standard security robot type, some Andorians (who seem to be like Klingons but slower), the Nausicaans (Klingons but uglier), and some annoying animals (dogs, scorpions, and pigs). The only really interesting enemy is the Lethian, because it has stealth capabilities. The weapon design is average, with four token Star Trek weapons, some standard weapons found in most other shooters, and one really nice ubergun. The two Star Trek guns are the disruptor pistol and rifle, which have the saving grace of a nice disintegration effect, and the other two weapons are a knife and the Bat'Leth (that curved Klingon battle sword). Then we have the spinning disk from Unreal, the rocket launcher (with an additional twist of heat-seeking rockets), the grenade launcher, and a rail gun (called "Sith Har" here). The ubergun, the particle dispersal cannon, is really nice because it either fires a massive energy wave or creates a miniature black hole. And while MicroProse made a lot of tweaks to the engine, the multiplayer is still hampered by the limitations that have plagued Unreal. MicroProse is promising to work with Epic on the infamous multiplayer patch, but for now, consider Klingon Honor Guard to be a single-player game. Klingon Honor Guard is a decent action game utilizing the Star Trek franchise. It's fun to wield that famed Bat'Leth - the Klingon-style one-liners your character dishes out are amusing. If you're a Star Trek fan, you'll probably appreciate the levels and enemies. But judged on its merits as a shooter, Klingon Honor Guard suffers because of its average design. --Thierry Nguyen --Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
C**N
Fun, Nostalgic, and Downright Awesome - If a Bit Glitchy on My Computer
This game is a real Star Trek game. Be for-warned I have not played the entire thing through yet - still trying to get it to work smoothly on my XP desktop, but I've made it all the way to Rura Pente so far. I've played Both Elite Force games, and while I enjoyed them, they didn't really feel like Star Trek. Running around killing things isn't really a Starfleet thing. So, enter "Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard." As a Klingon warrior in the elite "special forces", running around, shooting, stabbing and Bat'lething everything in sight makes complete sense. It is a game of vengeance and honor with a fascinating look into the Klingon world - one of the most fascinating and well-developed fictional races ever invented. My Klingon character's taunts as he Bat'leth's enemies down took me by surprise and brought an involuntary smile to my face - finally a Star Trek first-person shooter game that makes complete sense!CONS: It is a pretty old game, so resolutions are not the greatest, but there is an interesting nostalgic effect for me, where I kind of like that better.For me, in action intense scenes, it halts sometimes, which is annoying, but my DVD drive on my box isn't working, so I'm using a USB DVD drive, which probably explains it (although I can play Battlefront this way without any issue).PROS: It is just awesome. So far, I've thrown knives, used a Bat'leth, a disrupter pistol and a disrupter rifle. The action is pretty neat. You also go around knifing containers and rocks to break them open - who knew Klingon blades were indestructible! The intro videos before missions are very fun and informative on Klingon culture.
A**R
If you hate star trek... then your opinion will remain firm
Klingon Honor Guard is definately one of the better Star Trek games out there, though that may not be saying much.You play as a warrior in the Klingon academy sent to investigate an assassination attempt on the high chancellor. This sends you throughout the Klingon empire to find the assailant. Along the way you will run into all sorts of areas, most notably several levels on the Rura Penthe prison from Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, and aboard a Klingon Bird of Prey warship.Your weaponary utilizes some recognizable from the Star Trek universe like the disrupter rifle and the Bat'leth, the mighty Klingon sword.In the end this comes together to be a pretty good game, even if you aren't a Trekkie.
A**R
Uses the Unreal engine well, could be better
I'm a Unreal, and a Star Trek fan. I think that this is a good use of the Unreal engine, although it isnt as pretty as Unreal. I only found the game extremely enjoyable after i started playing with the cheats.
J**G
An Interesting Idea for a Shooter
I am a Star Trek fan, and I don't think any of the video games really do the franchise any justice. This klingon shooter is by far the best Star Trek game I have ever played in my life. It has all the klingon alphabet and text in the menu and on the HUD. The weapons are really cool and futuristic like you would expect from that show. It has a way of making you want to get further into each level. I would recommend this klingon game before any other Star Trek PC or video game.
C**Y
loved it
it played well and no glitches was really fun to. I hope to get more like it in the futcher.
H**U
One of my favorite first person shooter games
This ranks up there as one of my all time favorite first person shooter games and I've played quite a few: Silent Hill series, The Thing, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, Run Like Hell, Army of Darkness: A Fist Full of Boomsticks, Alien vs. Predator and the list goes on. This game would probably be one of my top five even including much more recent games. Of course I'm a Star Trek fan so being able to be a Klingon in a video game was pretty cool. It's kind of cool to be the hero but not necessarily real good guy, since you are a Klingon warrior after all. I loved the choice of weopons from a disruptor pistol and rifle to the bat'leth and d'k tahg. Too bad it didn't rate a sequel or get turned into a PS2 Game like Elite Force. I would love to play it again and my computer is too new to play the old copy I have.
J**H
Well...
For being released in 1998, this game is quite impressive. However, I think it's not meant to be played at a difficulty setting higher than "Ferengi"(which is the easiest).It's kind of fun, the dialog is poorly done but with good scripting. The videos don't work on my computer, but that just might be my computer doing that.As a trekkie, I give it 4.5 out of 5 for it's true-to-Trek story and background.As a gamer, I give it a 3.
