After the phenomenal success of last summer's Star Trek movie, there's never been a better time to boldly go online to explore new worlds and discover alien civilizations.
) steps in to fill that need and gives fans a chance to captain their own vessels across the universe in search of adventure. Players enter come into the scene in the middle of a battle with the Borg, and all the high ranking officers are killed in the attack, which automatically promotes you - the new Starfleet Ensign - to captain of your own vessel, even though you don't actually have the commanding rank. That's right, almost identical to the circumstances that gave Kirk his command in the 2009 movie, which sort of walks a thin line between homage and imitation. It's all in good spirit, but a little unsettling when you consider how the development team is now charged with writing new Star Trek canon.
There can be no question that the team at
Cryptic Studios working on
Star Trek Online is definitely knowledgeable and wonderfully enthusiastic about the Star Trek universe. The game takes place in the year 2409, about 30 years after the conclusion of Star Trek Nemesis. A lot of stuff has happened, most prominently the return of a the Undine (a shapeshifting race first encountered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant) with a mysterious agenda to infiltrate alien governments. Combined with the recent destruction of the Romulan homeworld, the stage is set for a renewed war between the Federation and Klingon Empire. Perhaps it should go without saying, if it's Star Trek related, it's in here. The game's major highlights include meeting the decedents of familiar characters (like Sulu's great grandson), or grown up versions characters that were children on the TV shows (Miral Paris and Naomi Wildman - both from Voyager). There are also numerous references to tactics used in the shows and movies, like igniting pockets of combustible gas clouds with phaser fire to destroy bands of ships, a.k.a. The Riker Maneuver.
Unfortunately, Spock is somewhat out of the picture, having been transported into an alternate timeline via the movie. However, Leonard Nimoy does provide some voice narration as Spock, providing background information on the state of the universe at the start of the game and when players enter a new zone. While the narrations are generally good, some of the writing is a bit awkward. The good news is that Nimoy is such a good speaker that you can look past some of the weak writing. All that being said,
STO is also an example of how enthusiasm can only take you so far.
As expected from a Cryptic game,
STO features a comprehensive character creator. Players can customize their uniforms and even create an entirely new species of alien from the ground up. In-depth character customization also applies to the bridge officers players pick up during the course of their career. Starship customization doesn't have as many options and is comprised almost entirely of mixing and matching parts from a handful of designs, but it stays true to the look and feel of Star Trek. Things start to take a turn for the worse once players engage warp and head out into the universe. Warp space never provided anything interesting to see on the shows, but the
STO representation isn't much of a step up. The translucent solar systems all look the same and unremarkable. Each region of space is divided into small blocks, reducing the grand magnitude of the universe. Things get significantly worse if players decide to embark on deep space exploration missions, which literally involves flying through expanses of empty fog in search of random encounters. "Discovering" a planet doesn't add it to your star charts, it simply initiates a generic mission.
The ship-to-ship battle system is probably the most compelling aspect of
STO's gameplay, although we are a little disappointed with how shallow it is. The principle is very simple: players use beam weapons to weaken an opponent's shields, waiting for the moment they drop so that you can fire a torpedo and cause direct damage to the hull. All the while, you have to hope that the enemy ship's shield face stays within the narrow firing path of the torpedo, among other things. Space combat becomes more in-depth as players progress, gain new skills, acquire more advanced ships (Starfleet gives you a free one at the Lt. Commander rank) and get additional bridge officers, but the basic principle stays the same. The game currently doesn't allow auto-fire for beam weapons, which forces players to ceaselessly tap the space bar during an encounter. [
EDIT:
It's not listed in tooltips, manual, or help systems but we figured out the auto fire, and it makes combat much better]
Combat doesn't allow for much maneuverability, either. In essence, this is a modified version of the kind of ship combat you'd expect from a oceanic game, like
Pirates of the Burning Sea. Players have to consider turning rates, weapon range and weapon facing when engaging in combat. Sure, ships can go up and down in 3D space, but it locks at a 45 degree angle, so it's impossible to pull up and over enemies that are in pursuit, like you would expect from a space flight sim. This design can also lead to some confusion, since ships often tend to pile up on top of each other, making it difficult to see whether enemies are in the line of fire or not. We'd like to believe that smart tactics play a role in victory, but brute force, higher grade weapons, and overwhelming numbers usually win the battle, as often proven in PvP.
What's also puzzling is that you can't target specific subsystems such as weapons or engines like the characters do on the TV shows. The best players can do is install weapons that have a chance to disable some random subsystem. This isn't nearly as satisfying (or strategic) as doing it on purpose, and there aren't any obvious indicators when it's working, so players are left to guess whether or not an enemy's engines or weapons are taken out. Even so, some of the game's greatest moments come from epic sized Fleet Actions, which is
STO-speak for public quests. There's nothing quite like the feeling of many ships of varying sizes coming together against a greater threat. However, these engagements make up only a small portion of the game, and the toughest ships with highest level captains tend to dominate these events. Other issues include nagging windows that pop-up and tell you that a Fleet Action or random encounter has concluded right after you warp in. In some cases, enemies patrol right by the spawn area and launch an attack as soon as you arrive, which gives them a couple free shots as you have to close the pop-up window, engage engines and start fighting back.
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A couple things seem a bit off in this review:
* You get a free new ship at each rank, not just Lt Cdr
* You can target ship subsystems (though there are some cooldowns to consider.) Science vessels have the innate ability to target subsystems, while certain bridge officers you acquire can have or be trained with various subsystems targetting.
* You can set up to two ship weapons (one fore, one aft) to auto-fire, including beam weapons. [This is a systems they've said they're reviewing for further customization] However ground combat does not have auto-fire at the moment. It's still a space-bar fest however, since you typically have more than two weapons.
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As a personal note, although there is a limitation in up/down angle, it is quite open enough to provide for a significant tactical use. Weapon arcs are veritical as well as horizontal, so the vertical space combined with a variety of turn speeds can be significant.Posted at 4:48PM on Mar 3rd 2010 by nehpetsca