The original Star Trek series first hit the airwaves on September 6th,
1966 and was promptly canceled less than three years later. At the
time, it was impossible to predict the staggering number fans the
intellectual property would gather over the next four plus decades. And
although there are various principles that are common through all its
incarnations, every single one of those fans has a different idea of
what Star Trek is (and means) to them. Trying to create a game that
would appeal to those fans was going to be a daunting task for anyone,
but after the collapse of Perpetual Entertainment in 2008, Cryptic
Studios stepped up to the plate to take the challenge on. Not only did
they meet it head on, they also did it in two years. That kind of
development timetable is completely unheard of in the industry when
talking about any MMOG, let alone a triple-A title, but
that’s what they did.
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Star Trek Online takes place in 2409, approximately thirty years after
the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. Things have undergone significant
changes and the current states of affairs are anything but peaceful.
The Klingons and Federation are in a state of war. The Romulans have
lost their homeworld in a supernova, leaving them homeless and
hell-bent on lashing out at anyone they can. The Borg have returned and
are more powerful than ever. Species 8472 is infiltrating the highest
ranks of all the superpowers and no one seems to know why. The calm and
peaceful Star Trek of our youth is no more.
The game is comprised mainly of space and ground combat along with a
minion system in the form of bridge officers. Players will take part in
episodic content, all woven together in an epic overarching storyline.
Along with the main storyline, daring captains can seek riches and new
content in the game's exploration sectors. These sectors utilize the
Genesis system, which allows the game to create new planets and aliens
as players enter them.
Rather than running around grabbing quests from every poor bum in the
universe, you'll get your orders from Starfleet and can complete them
in nearly any order you wish (this will also come in handy later, as
you can communicate remotely rather than having to return to your
origin point to receive rewards). The main method of story progression
involves episodes. These are missions that are strung together to make
one long story arc. Even some of these arcs are regularly linked
together.
For the first six levels of the game (unless you complete a questline
to unlock them earlier), players cannot create a Klingon-factioned
character. For those that wish to concentrate primarily on PvP, that's
the side for you. I've been spending the majority of my time on the
Federation side of the fence, so that's what the majority of this
review reflects.
Cautions
There's little in the way of gameplay to warrant any type of warning
for Star Trek Online. The combat is relegated to ships in space and
cartoon-like violence on the ground. There is no blood or gore. I also
have yet to witness any green-skinned Orion slave girl wardrobe
malfunctions (to the dismay of pubescent geeks everywhere) so consider
the meat and potatoes of the game perfectly safe for tweens and
teenagers.
Unfortunately, the other players they'll encounter have no such
guarantees attached to them or their mouths. There is a language filter
in the game, and you can create a chat channel that doesn't include the
general public, but there's nothing to stop Little Johnny from just
turning the global channel back on.
This is no different from virtually any other online game and is just
part of the package. If you want to let your kids game online, be
prepared for the possibilities.
Gameplay - 80 / 100
Star Trek Online truly feels like two separate games tied together with
a common theme, so for this section, I'm going to treat it as such. The
score above is the average of the space and ground game scores. Let's
start things off with the good.
Space Gameplay Score: A-
Space combat in Star Trek Online consists of monitoring your shields
(fore, aft, port, and starboard), knowing where and when to fire which
weapons or abilities, and positioning your ship for maximum
effectiveness. Like all truly fun games, it's an easy system to learn,
but takes time and effort to master. Not so much in the early stages of
the game, but the longer you trek through the stars and the better
ships you get, your skills are going to need to improve at the same
pace to outwit the new enemies you'll encounter.
The combat is fast paced, but not so fast that a solid element of
strategy isn't needed. Each tier of ships adds another layer to combat.
This is both a blessing and a curse. Just when I began to feel as
though I were a masterful kick-ass pilot in my Tier II Science Vessel,
I hit Commander and felt like a boot fresh out of the Academy in my new
Research Science Vessel. The placement of my fingers for the previous
ten levels of gameplay were no longer *quite* valid. This sense of
disjointed control soon faded, but the initial change was jarring.
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Space is where Star Trek Online truly shines, especially when playing
with a group. And not just any group, but a group of skilled pilots.
When you get that group that's full of players that not only know their
ships well, but also know how to coordinate their attacks it's a
beautiful thing. Even when you get players that can't fly or coordinate
for squat, it's still fun.
In the early stages of the game, you can stumble blindly into the midst
of your enemies with no real plan of attack, but as you progress
further along, this quickly becomes the exception rather than the rule.
In your first ship, taking on four Klingon Bird-of-Prey ships is a
cakewalk. Doing the same thing in a Tier III ship is a whole other
story. It can still be done, but a combination of your expertise and
the abilities of your bridge officers will determine how efficiently
you handle the task. If you go in with a plan, execute it well, and are
prepared to change strategies on the fly to deal with an ever-evolving
tactical situation, you'll do just fine. If you fly in the middle and
shoot at whatever you please you may still get lucky enough to get out
of there with at least part of your skin intact, but it's not going to
be pretty.
Position, position, position. That's the name of the game when you're
trying to blow your enemy out of the sky. Never underestimate the value
of unleashing a minor bridge officer ability at just the right time.
Tagging that Klingon Battle Cruiser with a lowly Tractor Beam just as
the Escort in your group is lining a strafing run from the side can
turn a three minute battle into a 20 second one. Position also affects
the damage of your beam weapons. The closer you are to your target, the
more damage they do.
Knowing where to be during a space battle is important, but how you
outfit your ship has just as much to do with determining your play
style as anything else. Different weapons have different firing arcs
within which they can fire. As a general rule, the more narrow the
firing radius, the more damage the weapon will do. So for example,
cannons may only have a firing arc of 45 degrees, compared to the
250-degree arc of phasers, but they do a lot more damage. No one way is
the right way, so experiment with various configurations to see what
works best for you.
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The user interface is slick (see our Space UI Guide here) and whether
you use your mouse or keyboard for most of your commands during combat,
it's all right there. If you're not satisfied with how things are laid
out, simply hit F12 and move anything and everything to the position
that's a perfect fit for you.
Without a doubt, space combat in Star Trek Online is a treat and always
brings a smile to my face. The more ships involved and the closer the
battle, the better it gets. Space fleet actions make up some of the
most entertaining (and heart pounding) moments in the game.
As you progress through the game, you'll gain access to bigger and
better ships. These ships will have more console stations for your
bridge officers. The number and types (science, engineering, and
tactical) depend on the type of ship you choose. Cruisers are the
lumbering tanks of the game with their massive hull strength numbers.
Escorts are glass cannons that can turn on a dime. Finally, Science
vessels have the most advanced shields of any ship and their crew can
disable the subsystems (shields, weapons, engines, and auxiliary
systems) of enemy vessels. Each ship has its own strength and
weaknesses. Take the time to learn each of them, and you'll be a space
combat master in no time.
Ground Gameplay Score: C+
In my First Impressions piece, I talked about the lackluster ground
combat in Star Trek Online. To be sure, this aspect of the game has
improved in terms of overall fun, but it's still the weakest portion of
the Star Trek Online formula. Artificial intelligence programming has
improved by leaps and bounds in the rest of the world. I know it has
because I've seen it in other games. Unfortunately, those discoveries
haven't fully made their way into Star Trek Online, though in some
cases they thankfully have.
The bridge officers in my away team are awesome at keeping my sorry ass
alive when we're in the thick of battle. I can't stress how much I
naturally suck at the ground portion of Star Trek Online. Fortunately
for me, the development team has foreseen this inevitability and
granted my officers some super leet skills. Now they just need to find
a way of doing it without turning them all into wandering morons when
it comes time to follow me to the next objective.
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The Bridge Officer pathing is in desperate need of improvement. I use
the group waypoint button regularly to keep my officers with me. If
not, they either get stuck on the local terrain or seem to feel the
best way to reach me is to run directly through the group of enemies I
just got done skirting around in an attempt to be stealthy.
Enemy AI still goes back and forth between being less than attentive
and completely brutal. On the same mission, I stand a solid chance of
running into a group of identical enemies. Group number one will stand
around and shoot, rarely use an ability, and get in each other's way
more often than not as my team slaughters them like the helpless
minions they are. Two minutes later when I round the next corner and
spy their identical counterparts though, I'm in for a world of hurt. Do
you know how hard it is for someone as untalented at ground combat as I
am to take out a group of Romulans when one of them is a medic that's
continually healing (and reviving) his team members and two others are
building shield generators? There should be a happy medium somewhere in
between when dealing with identical groups of enemies.
The biggest (and only?) advantage ground combat currently has over its
space-bound counterpart is the fact that your bridge officers can
utilize all of their powers, rather than being restricted by any
console type as they are in space. This means that even if your
favorite tactical officer is only allowed to use one ability in space,
he can use all of his trained ground abilities. Be sure to promote your
bridge officers as soon as you're able to take advantage of this
benefit.
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The ability to position individual team members is extremely useful and
the more I utilize this tool, the more enjoyable my ground experiences
have been getting. This adds a small element of strategy to this aspect
of the game, but isn't actually required until well into the game. It
wasn't until I started having to deal with shield generator-building
Romulans that I really had to start having my team positioned to flank
them and concentrate our fire. By the time you reach that point though,
it does little to add to your enjoyment and becomes an annoyance
instead. If this were a necessity for players to learn/master earlier
in the game, I wouldn't have a problem with it. To wait until a player
is half way through the game's content is too long to wait before
making these skills matter.
With all my complaints about the ground aspect of the game, are there
any highlights? Actually, the answer is yes. I recently had the
pleasure of participating in a fleet action that was ground-based. This
is the first and only time I've seen this which is a complete shame
because for the first time since I started playing Star Trek Online,
ground combat was an absolute blast. We were transported to a planet,
given a number of different objectives to complete, and had to fight
hordes of Klingons.
Players worked together as they kept moving forward in squads, tossed
buffs and heals on everyone like they were beads in a Mardi Gras
parade, and did it all as a team... with virtually no communication. It
was as though everyone there was suddenly in the moment and dove into
character. It really was an amazing thing to witness and I'm glad I was
a part of it. Why there aren't more of these fleet action missions in
the early levels, I don't know. If they bring about more maps of this
nature, the ground combat in Star Trek Online may start to lose its bad
image.
Graphics - 90 / 100
To give readers a point of reference for the graphics section, I've
been playing Star Trek Online on a system with the following specs:
CPU:
AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core Processor~2.5GHz
RAM:
4GB DDR2 800Mhz
VIDEO:
GeForce GTX 260 (896MB)
SOUND:
Onboard Realtek, 5.1 surround sound
POWER:
1000 Watt
OS:
Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Right at the start, players are treated to the full Cryptic character
creation treatment. No other company in the industry has come close to
dethroning the reigning champions in this aspect and that's good news
for you. The uniform choices may feel limited, but it's a uniform.
There's only so much customization that can be gotten away with. When
it comes to your character's features though, have fun. There are an
unimaginable amount of combinations and adjustments you can make to
create the character of your dreams. Even one month into the game, I'm
still amazed at the variety I continually see.
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The art team deserves a hearty "Good job!" for the hard work they
obviously put into Star Trek Online. The graphics are clean, vibrant,
and while stylized to a certain degree, capture the essence of Star
Trek. Space is as infinite in its beauty within the game as I imagine
space to be in real life. Just when you reach the point of thinking
you've seen all the backgrounds and planets the art team has conjured,
you enter a new system and are blown away by the colors strafing the
starry background. The ground areas look good (and sometimes stunning)
as well.
While I haven't had any flickering issues in space, there are some
ground maps that consistently produce this effect, most often within
Romulan base maps. Overall, framerates have been silky smooth for me.
The only exception to this has been brief moments during some massive
fleet battles.
Sound - 97 / 100
With all of the original source material at their finger tips, the team
at Cryptic would have had to go out of their way to provide anything
less than stellar sound. Fortunately, they took the time to make sure
the sound in Star Trek Online is perfect. Phasers sound like phasers.
When you receive a private tell from another player, the chime of
someone coming to your door on the Enterprise-D comes through your
speakers. With the very first loading screen, the team draws you into
the game with the beginning movements of the original TV intro score.
How could you not get excited for the adventures you and your crew will
embark on? As the final cherry on the top of this audio sundae, the
team also recruited Leonard Nimoy to provide narration for not only the
movie intro, but also the progressing storyline. Suffice it to say the
sound is outstanding.
Value - 87 / 100
No matter how you go about it, asking someone the value of an ongoing,
online game is always a loaded question. Rather than go with a standard
answer, I'm actually going to give you a few for this one.
If you're looking for something new and fun to keep you entertained for
30 days, Star Trek Online deserves a solid A+ for value. If you go into
the game with the plan to play for hours a day and burn through content
as fast as you can, you're going to get your money's worth. Whether
you're a space combat junkie looking for a fix or a nerd-raging Trekker
looking for something to soothe the burns of the horrific past Star
Trek titles you've suffered through, Star Trek Online is worth the
price of admission.
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The hardcore MMOG player that is hoping Star Trek Online will be that
game that allows them to live the adventure of a lifetime for 4 to 8
hours a day is going to be sorely disappointed. Just like the various
series that came before it, Star Trek Online was meant to be enjoyed in
small chunks of time. I *love* Star Trek: The Next Generation and
Voyager, but even I start to get bored after watching three or four
episodes back to back. Every single Star Trek series can be distilled
down to a general pattern of events and pacing. Star Trek Online is the
same way. If you play multiple missions back to back, you’re
going to get a sense of repetitiveness.
The semi-casual player is going to find the most enjoyment of all the
groups when it comes to Star Trek Online. Here's the perfect recipe to
find the maximum enjoyment: Take one or two hour chunks of white
knuckled mission completion, sprinkle liberally with additional
exploration time, and top with a dusting of hanging out and just
talking with friends or new people you meet. Follow this simple recipe
and you'll be in love with the game for months to come.
Pros and Cons
PROS:
- It's Star Trek!
- Engaging space combat that
increases in complexity as you progress through five tiers of ships. - Gorgeous and varied space
vistas. - Impeccable audio, from voice
acting to sound effects. - Excellent character creation
system. - Being able to complete
quests and receive rewards without always having to return to a
starbase.
CONS:
- Extremely cryptic skills
system. Determining which skill increases affect which Bridge Officer
skills is nearly impossible. - Bridge Officer pathing
issues during ground combat. - Ground missions need more
depth and variety. - Leveling curve fluctuates
between too fast and too slow. - Memory Alpha/Crafting is
lackluster.
Conclusion
Star Trek Online, like many an MMOG before it, is not complete. Things
that need to be addressed the soonest to appease the masses would be
more PvE content for the Klingon Empire, the ability to join fleet
actions as a fleet, the ability to know at a glance what skills affect
what, more ship customization, and (like every other game in the world)
more content.
For the time Cryptic had to get Star Trek Online out the door, the game
is unbelievable. Having a short time to make a game doesn't mean
anything to players at the end of the day though, so while many players
will find countless hours of entertainment from their voyages, it's not
the game for everyone. Fortunately, it appears that Cryptic is fine
with that and made a conscious decision to create a niche game. Here's
hoping they stick to their guns and continue to improve it as time goes
on.
Overall 80/100 - Good
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