Preview: Star Trek Online
Monday, 25 January 2010 11:48
If you've read one of my reviews before, you will be familiar with my next statement. I have a caveat you need to know about for this review; I don't like Star Trek. It isn't that I hate it. I've seen some, wasn't really impressed, couldn't be bothered to pay it any attention. For well over a year now I've glazed over news about Star Trek Online. I figured that I wouldn't be missing much.
So many sci-fi MMORPGs have come and mostly gone, and the other Star Trek games have all been utter shite, I figured we'd be seeing this in the bargain bin by Easter. If there's one thing to know about me (besides that I start every review with a catch), though, it is that I have brash, impulsive needs, and one day I realized I was downloading the STO client.
And I found out that I had a hole in my heart. The closure of Earth & Beyond years ago left me longing for the open reaches of space. I tried going back to SWG, but that was lacking. STO ripped the tender stitches holding my E&B wound closed out and grabbed hold of my very bones. The main component of STO is space combat, and here I found something that not only filled that void, but caused it to overflow. Even the first levels, usually a time where you kill rabbits and frogs to buy a sword, were very fleshed out. Space in STO is very, very much tactical, much moreso than E&B. It can almost be compared to a good naval simulator. You maneuver about to come broadsides and fire your weapons. You wheel about to turn inside and catch them in a vulnerable spot. Speed and strength are tested; you can zip about and place your firepower on one side of their shields, or stand your ground and fight. From early on, you're facing multiple opponents. By the middle levels, you're engrossed in using beams and jamming signals and rerouting power and crap. You're layout out a minefield and pulling large battleships into your killing zone.
And that's only half of the story. The fighting on the ground is almost as engaging. I found it to be a little on the easy side if you have a good away team. Yea, you have a 5 person team while doing solo ground missions. Some are dirty footwork running around collecting stuff, but many are pretty intense firefights you need to direct your crew in.
This is the most skill-based game, I think, since Anarchy Online. Under you, you have bridge officers. You can have them concentrated in space or ground or both (later on, you have enough underlings to meet any situation). These are crew mates who do the work at your command. As you level, you spend skill points to make their individual abilities/attacks/tactics function better. You can suit them to a specific mission, and sometimes you need to.
Notice that I haven't mentioned anything about Star Trek yet. Star Trek isn't avoided by the game, it just isn't in the way (as it is in SWG). There's the plethora of aliens and alien lands to explore, and seduce if you're a Kirk fan.
Progressing in the game can be quite methodic. As you level, you can promote your bridge officers, and gain new access to ships and equipment. The specific path you follow is not linear at all. You choose where your character and minions excel, but progressing can feel quite slow. There are three general branches to choose from; combat, engineering, and science. Each of those paths have a number of specialties under them, so one science officer may be adept at debuffing and confusing enemies, while another focuses on healing. Along each path, you upgrade your ship to be more specific to your branch. Your ship reflects that – for instance, science ships have more shields and electronics, less hull strength.
Beyond the typical “go kill the bad guys” missions, there are fleet engagements. If you are familiar with Warhammer Online, you'll be comfortable here. The game essentially adjusts a large enemy fleet to meet whatever players happen to be in the zone. Mass chaos results, unless you're prepared. Some of these actions are typical PvE, but there are also plenty of PvP areas to take the fight to, and that is natural, since your quests will take you into enemy space.
Graphically, the game isn't stunning, but it is very nice looking. You have a fair hand at customization (which feels a bit like what you do in City of Heroes, which the engine is based on, thanks Cryptic) of both your ships and your uniforms. Space battles, probably the easiest artistic part, are still stunning, given the amount of weapons being fired. Ground actions also look smooth, and controls are, for the most part, easy to get a hold of (though figuring out what station to assign an officer to in order to get a needed ability can be confusing). STO isn't a resource hogging beast, either. I'm running in large resolution windowed mode, as I do with most games, and STO barely hiccups. STO runs in DirectX 9, and recommends 2 gb of RAM and a dual core processor. If you don't do windowed mode, Cryptic was nice enough to include an ingame music player that controls your default media player.
One problem I've encountered is that I've run out of missions. This is common in the early stages of a MMO, so don't get upset about it. There are a good number of rather intricate and well designed missions to take up your time, and in addition to fleet actions, plenty of repeatable exploration, patrol, and defense missions. There is almost always content on demand, though of course, some of that is repetitive. If you have friends around (or even not), there will be something challenging you can find.
For the PvP minded, there will be both faction-based contests as well as straight competition. PvP in STO is consensual, which means you can simply avoid it if you aren't into it. There isn't a PvP server – like AO, everything takes place on one “shard” (I use the term to throw a bone to the old schoolers). Currency ingame is a little tricky. Different factions have their general currency (the Federation uses Energy Credits, for example), but these are mostly used on the lower-end items and on the player market (it isn't an auction house, just straight deals). Higher level items require exploration and combat merits, but the best stuff you'll find is from questing.
Speaking a final bit, a key to playing STO is knowing where to concentrate your strengths and how to avoid your weakness. This applies to both items and combat. In combat, you will need to know how to execute maneuvers like changing direction when your facing shields get low while keeping your target in a firing position (you'll understand what that means quickly). But like most MMOs, a lot of your efforts will be focused on preparing for combat. STO doesn't disappoint, delivering plenty of different weapons, from the phasers and torpedoes to disruptors and cannons, and from boarding parties to quantum mines. Some have wide arcs of firing with less power, meaning you can maneuver more, while others require a more direct facing but you can be outflanked.
Some things one can gleam in the future for STO are the increasingly popular paid points store, for items and additional character slots.
In all, Star Trek Online is a pleasant little surprise. Because of the space and away team elements, it is not similar to other MMORPGs. It was well thought out and balanced, and does the Star Trek brand proud. With a sure-fire MMO like SW: The Old Republic and others like The Secret World coming, STO has its work cut out for it, but STO will go where no... no, I'm not going to end this with a Star Trek line.