Star Trek Online Review

Hardly a month into 2010 and we already have our first new MMORPG. Star Trek Online as a franchise has seen it's share of trouble. After being in the works for almost four years, it's original developer went bankrupt. It was now up to MMO veterans Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes, Champions Online) to step up and see the title to completion. In what might be record time, Cryptic assembled an Online game for one of the most cherished franchises of all time. Will it boldly go where no MMO has gone before, or will this one be mothballed like a Constitution Class starcruiser? Lets break down the game and see what this title has in store for players.

Lets get you up to speed Ensign

After a strange string of events involving the Borg and a field promotion, you will find yourself the captain of a ship. You waste no time and start recruiting bridge staff that will not only accompany you on away missions, but will help you by improving the abilities of your ship overall. Your bridge staff and general crew are all NPC which are at your command. There is no starting as chief of engineering and working your way up. You're sitting at the big kid table almost from the word go.

After a short tutorial, you're released onto the galaxy with your new crew and your newly inherited rent-a-wreck. You will receive missions from various officers at Starfleet that will require your attention. These missions will net you skill points, new items and sometimes even new bridge officers. Instead of traditional levels, you will have different ranks and grades. Each rank (Ensign, Commander, Captain) has ten grades before you earn a promotion which gains you access to a new tier of ship and skills. Lastly, as mentioned, instead of experience you are awarded skill points which can be spent at any time to improve your character.

When it comes to the actual gameplay, Star Trek Online is basically two games in one. The first being the ship based space end of things and the second being your away team missions on the ground. A majority of your time will be spent in your ship as it is your basic means of transportation in the galaxy and most of the missions center around the space combat part of the game. This is for the best as the ground missions, while sometimes fun, are pretty "mmo as usual."

The Final Frontier

Let's be straight. When you think of Star Trek, you think of the Enterprise. So with this in mind, you can imagine that your ship will play an important part in the Star Trek Online Experience. While your ship is your basic means of transportation, it is character unto itself. With it's own items, powers and stats, your ship is in all essence one of the two avatars you will control in the game.

Overall the space combat is very deliberate, and is most rewarding when you take the time to learn the strengths of your ship, weapons and abilities. Some of the more twitch gamer among us might not appreciate the pace of this combat, while the more run and gun of us might not enjoy the way teamwork really plays into some of the larger battles.

The easiest way to explain space battles is by comparing it to open sea battles. It's all about getting your ship into optimal position while keeping your opponent from getting theirs. A common example of a ship's weapon setup is a front and back beam array setup. With this setup there is a slight overlap in the targeting arc of the two weapons, so you can actually give the enemy your broadside in order to hit them with both front and back beam weapons. More powerful weapons such as disruptor canons and torpedoes have a more narrow firing arc which requires you to actually face your enemy. Weapons like these are better for the faster and more agile ships that you can choose to pilot after you outgrow your first starter ship.

There are basically three types of ships and they break down into typical video game stereotypes. The small, fast ship that can dish out a lot of damage but not take it. A big, slow ship that can do decent weapons damage but can take a lot of punishment. Then there's the ship that's somewhere in the middle on size and speed that uses special science skills to weaken the enemy or enhance itself and allies. There is fair amount of customizing to be had on the ships, but it is nothing compared to the customizing of your captain.

Oh Captain my Captain

One thing Cryptic has always been known for is the crazy level of customizing you can do to your character. When creating them, you are given a list of races and the typical "Make a giant headed freak" options. What this game has that is truly special is the "Unknown Species" option when you are choosing your race. This option not only allows you to physically create the look of your character, but allows you to pick from a list of racial bonus traits. This allows you to re-create lesser known species from the Star Trek universe if you're a fan or make your perfect super solider if you're a meta-gamer. This Captain will be your avatar for your hours of wandering around starbases looking for for Commander Sulu and for ground based away missions.

Anyone who has played a Cryptic game before will recognize the ground combat system as it is very similar to games like City of Heroes. Combat will require you to hit a button for every attack, as there is no automatic default attack. This will lead to a lot of spamming the 1 key on your hotbar trying to use the basic fire mode of your weapon. While this can become tedious and boring at times, it does allow you to feel more involved with the fight. There are some basic ideas such as a flanking position damage modifier and crouching to reduce damage taken while increasing damage given.

Another interesting addition to the combat system is expose and exploit weapon attacks. Each weapon has a special attack beyond it's standard firing mode. Ranging from sniper shots to full auto firing arcs, these attacks are usually higher damage attacks with a longer cool down. Also attached to these special attacks are either an expose or exploit modifier. An expose attack has a chance of leaving the target open to a skill with the exploit modifier. When an exploit attack lands on an exposed enemy, you can expect a huge damage bonus and most the time a one shot kill that leads to a very gratifying disintegration of the target.

Luckily, you will never find yourself alone on the ground. When beaming to another location, you will almost always have a party of five. So at any time you will have four other people to help you, and you will need that help. But don't worry if you don't have any friends. If you're playing alone, this party will be filled up with your bridge staff or generic redshirts. You can even take the time to equip weapons and other items on your bridge staff to help compliment your skills as a Captain.

Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds...

Now we all know it takes more than gameplay to make a successful MMO, so how well does Star Trek Online execute all this gameplay in a persistent universe? Are the missions fun? Does the story suck you in? Well, Cryptic does a great job in some areas and lacks a bit in others. One thing they do well is eliminating some of the pointless downtime and waiting that is still part of many popular MMOs.

Firstly, the game makes completing missions a very fluid experience. In most cases you will go to a mission's starting system and no other in game traveling is needed. If there is a change in mission location, it's typically as simple as pushing a button to warp to another planet in the system or to beam down onto the surface. Rarely will you be told to travel from one point to another for the sake of moving the plot along.

Another welcome step against downtime is how you actually manage missions. You will not have to actually fly back to a Starbase and have a dialog with an Admiral every time you want to turn in a completed mission or acquire a new one. In STO you simply hail Starfleet, pick the contact you want to talk to and then choose the mission you want to talk about. It's that simple.

Frankly, there might be some people that will feel as if everything is moving too fast. A motivated player will find themselves just running through entire chains of missions and multiple levels at a drop of a hat. While I don't think the elimination of downtime is ever a bad thing, Cryptic will have to be careful to find other ways to organically lengthen the time players put into the game or they will find themselves with nothing left to do after a couple months of playing.

One place that Star Trek Online falls short is their "Exploration Missions." Cryptic employs a system called The Genesis Engine to create randomly generated worlds for you and your crew to explore. Unfortunately, in it's current state, all these missions are rather repetetive and boring. It typically involves you either scanning 5 items either in space or on the ground, killing all of the randomly generated bad guys that are troubling the natives or simply delivering aid supplies to a planet through a dialog window. Maybe as the game goes on and Cryptic explores this feature it will become more exciting, but as it stands now, it falls flat.

A tale of two stories

Now the stories that binds all these parts together may be the best illustration for the overall feel of this game. There are moments when the story is truly inspired and other times when you have to wonder if the writers did more than look over Star Trek Cliffnotes. It's an amazingly bi-polar experience that isn't aided by Star Trek's already muddled canon.

For example, in one mission you find your enemy attempting to explain that you are being misled by a politician. You are then given no option but to fight the person reaching out to explain the situation to you. Then you find out in the end, that your enemy was right all along. This will sometimes leave you feeling like a stereotypical big, dumb jock that wants nothing more than to go around beating up nerds.

Then a few missions later, you are part of a plot that has you traveling through time and trying to protect your timeline from being altered. You meet the past version of the very person that you are trying to defeat. You also have the slightest of run ins with a very iconic ship from the Star Trek franchise. When it is all said and done, it was a great story and left you feeling like a true hero of the Federation. The swinging back and forth quality of the narrative can be jarring and might be frustrating to those players that enjoy a well told story.

Overall, fans of the politics, diplomacy and non-violent conflict resolution that was a staple in shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation might find the game a little too trigger happy for their taste. The game currently has no real option to play the diplomat and often times makes you feel like a gunslinger quick to anger. Though Cryptic has gone on record saying diplomacy is a large part of Star Trek and we can expect to see it play a larger role in the game as it evolves.

There is one thing that all Star Trek fans will be able to appreciate though. Both Zachary Quinto and the legendary Leonard Nimoy provide voice over for this game. Besides being an option for the voice of your bridge crew, both offer in game content. Quintos is actually the voice guiding you through the tutorial, while Nimoy provides narrative for the game's opening and offers insight into the Star Trek universe each time you enter a new zone. Nimoy's work can be especially chilling and overall brings a completely new level of class to the game.

All good things

So has Cryptic finally created the mythical WoW Killer? Not very likely. What they have done is designed a fun and engaging game that shows a lot of potential. While the game won't be for everyone, it's a unique alternative in market that is mostly comprised of fantasy titles. The ship combat is a lot fun, the ground combat isn't completely terrible and it's set in a universe that many people will find familiar and enjoyable. If Cryptic makes good on their promise of free episodic content releases and continue to fine tune the game, this could easily be one of the larger MMOs on the market providing players with fun for years to come.

Pros: Engaging space combat Streamlined mission flow Solid gameplay A lot of potential for growth as Cryptic continues to tune the game

Cons: Manic story telling Passable ground combat Repetitive (typical for an MMO)

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

*Note* This game is an online game and all details given in this review are subject to change. This review is based on the very last build of the game during it's open beta cycle and may change in the retail release.