To Boldly Go Or Not To Go......

Star Trek Online launched on February 2nd, but I have had the opportunity to play since the open beta. My friend, Greg, wanted me to post something about what I thought about my experience so far with the game.

Star Trek Online will let you play as a number of Federation species (Human, Bolian, Trill, etc.) and at sixth level you unlock the ability to play a Klingon character. The game takes place thirty years after the events in the film, Star Trek: Nemesis. A Supernova destroyed the Romulan home world in this time, so they are a scattered people. The Klingons use this as an excuse to attack and take territory in the Romulan Empire and also draw the Federation into a renewed confrontation. As a side note - the Borg have returned and are assimilating parts of the galaxy as well. So what does all this mean? Simply put - war. The Alpha Quadrant is embroiled in conflict and not much else.

I started out by making my character with the Federation side. The character screen offers a robust and pretty decent set of choices to choose from to make a unique-looking character. It lets you choose multiple types of uniforms you can have/colors etc. The character creation screens in Star Trek Online are a lot like those found in many other common massively multi-player online games on the market today. The game does have a slider bar style of choosing the look for your characters that quickly reminded me of the Sims 2. By moving the sliders you can adjust anything from the characters height, weight, forehead, and many other physical features. I would say it probably does a slightly better job than average with the number of options for customization it presents. If you a special species (such as trill) you can even customize your "spots". Although I have not had a chance to try anything beyond Human, Klingon, and Trill, I am sure that the other races have similar options. The character editor also lets you adjust a characters stances. These are meant to reflect a characters overall "style" or "demeanor" as an outward reflection of their possible personality. So you can have a character who every time he or she stands still, hangs their body in a particular style. Out of the other games I have played I would give the character creation on this one 7.5 to 8 stars.

After you create your character - a process that takes about 15-20 minutes, depending on your eye for detail and desire for perfection, STO takes you through a tutorial-type mission that lasts about 30 minutes, if that. This is when you first get a look at the world graphics, sounds, etc. STO does a good job of presenting the Star Trek Universe visually. The colors are vibrant and backgrounds and scenery are really pretty good. When you think back to the panoramic views from Star Trek as characters gazed at those wonderful space scenes from the ships windows, Star Trek Online captured that. An example of this kind of detail is where in one mission you are required to beam two Borg drones into space. In the next room you enter if you look out the window, you see one of the Borg bodies you beamed into space float by the window. I thought that was a great touch as it provides a sense of cool dramatization that helps you feel like each scene was tied together. Another way the graphics helped you to feel like Star Trek is when you were fighting inside a ship, the bridges, corridors, and different ship sections all made you feel like you were on board that particular vessel. The phaser and disruptor blasts were very genuine looking down to the occasional humanoid vaporization's as well. A particular favorite of mine is when they put the name of your ship on the hull where you can see it. This was a nice little thing in my book. The tutorial plays on both ground and space, letting you get a feel for play in both.

Now that we are up to gameplay, this is where my opinions start to differ some to the negative. I have found that the space and ground combat actually becomes repetitive pretty fast. It looks good, plays pretty good, but there isn't much in the way of content. Once you play one space or ground battle, then you’ve played them all, as they are all pretty much exactly alike. The only thing that changes really is the enemy or the objective. I was hoping for more diplomatic missions, exploration, and looking into the human condition - for which Star Trek is known. Don't get me wrong, they do have some missions that are not combat, but it doesn't seem to be the case very often. There is no crafting system and the sandbox feel is really low. In an example of the latter, you can enter your ship’s Bridge…but that’s it - no Engineering, Holodeck, Mess Hall, Quarters, nothing. You can't even sit in the Captain's chair. Maybe I am being too nitpicky, but seriously, who hasn’t wanted to sit in the Captain’s chair?!

That said, Klingon combat feels a bit more like Star Trek. They are a warlike people, so combat and wars suit them as a race. In this respect, STO succeeds. It also offers content in a little bit more varied way as it is PVP. Don't get too excited yet though, while the battles are different as you face live opponents, the mechanics and over all outcomes of each are almost exactly the same. A good example of the repetitive space battle is when you enter combat with a ship, you essentially have a fairly limited options available to you. While the ships are upgradable, essentially you aren't doing anything more fun than flying in a circle around your enemy slamming buttons frantically trying to bypass your enemies shields before yours die. Although you do a get a few more options as you level in the kinds of weapons your ships have, its still the same basic strategy over and over. You enter battle, fly at your opponent, shoot like hell, and you or they die. Rinse, lather, and repeat. Occasionally you will get a mission where you just have to pick up an item and take it to someone or you rescue crew from a ship. Mostly though its combat. Now, a little about ground fighting and its inherent problems. Like in space, when you beam down to a planet, you find your enemy, track to their location, then you and your away team blast them and they blast you. First one who's shields drop usually loses. Rinse, lather, change a planet or to a different enemy, and repeat. I want to stress yet again that I have not played all that long, so maybe it gets more exciting and more like Star Trek later into playing. Basically, there are not a lot of variety of things to do.

Leveling is another thing on which I would like to comment. I do enjoy that STO's difficulty is not so hard that it removes the enjoyment; however it is almost too easy to level. An example of this ease is how quickly really you go up in levels. I have to wonder if as you kill one thing and your level jumps up quite a bit its because they know the combat is so repetitive that leveling is being thrown to you like a bone so that you won't recognize how bored you are. Unfortunately I noticed how bored I was and the bone did little for me. Klingon's pvp combat is a little more challenging because you have the human factor added into the mix. So it is naturally a bit harder than the Federation game just because that human unpredictability keeps your eyes spinning in entertained lustfulness for a few minutes longer than the other before boredom sneaks up and makes the kill. A bit more of a challenge would be good but don't get crazy in this area. The skill sets seem to be appropriate for the Star Trek world but I am not sure about the three starting professions. You may choose from Tactical, Science, or Engineering Officer. Quite frankly, the skill sets are redundant, as you can be either an Engineer or a Tactical Officer and the requirements are the same. Lame.

In conclusion, one of my biggest fears with STO is that it will not have longevity. I am already growing bored with it and it’s not even the first month yet. I hope that it will continue to get better and they work out more things and publish more updates, as I love the Star Trek universe. I rate it overall 5 out of 10 stars. If more playing changes my opinions on this game, I will put them in future updates. Thanks for reading. Erik to Enterprise.....one to beam up. Energize.

Erik Swanson is not affiliated with Cryptic. This article represents his opinions only.