its reuse. The developers described the game as "sort of the Commandos/S.W.A.T. team of the Federation. They have been specially trained with prototype weapons and technologies to undergo the most extreme missions." Paramount Studios had concerns about the game, and wanted their intellectual property to be protected by the developers. This resulted in permission sought from Paramount to add new Star Trek-based technologies and weapons to the game and to approve the script. Activision presented a demonstration of Away Team at the E3 convention in May 2000, alongside Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force and Bridge Commander. Reception Star Trek: Away Team received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Some reviews such as The Independent were positive, saying that "Away Team will have gamers and Trekkies champing at the bit." The Birmingham Mail described the game as "satisfyingly challenging and engaging". Daily Radar called the game "respectable", and thought that both the gameplay and plot were "fun and familiar but hardly new or daring". The review called the voice acting "first class", and said overall that it was a "solid and fun experience". John Lee of NextGen said of the game, "Comparison to Commandos is inevitable, and even though this dirty dozen carries phasers, it's a terrific, enjoyable challenge." However, others were less positive. There was criticism of the linear storyline, with IGN comparing the game to the X-COM franchise saying that Away Team didn't allow for any customisation and the pre-made characters had no impact on the storyline. Because of this, the review also criticised the role-playing experience of the game, saying that "Even a game like Panzer General provides more role-playing than Away Team." Computer Games Strategy Plus also compared the game to X-COM, with elements of Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines added. It said that the lack of artificial intelligence meant that the need to pause the game repeatedly to give commands resulted in order to allow the characters to fight back against attacks. GameSpot called that lack of artificial intelligence a "giant step back from the real-time combat in X-COM: Apocalypse". The Washington Post found that the characterisation was lacking compared to Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force. The graphics were also criticised, due to the locked aspect ratio of the maps and the pixelization this caused when the player zoomed in, which was described as "unpleasent" by IGN. It also had the effect