Features & News
Hands On: Star Trek Online (Open Beta)
January 20, 2010, Author: Ray Willmott
Ever since the World of PC gaming became dominated by World of Warcraft, companies have begun to recognise the potential for greatness in converting their franchises into an MMO. Certainly there was a fan base for Blizzard’s crown jewel prior to the release of WoW, but nothing quite to the extent of its current user base. The game has amassed over thirteen million subscribers and continues to climb. No other MMO, before or since, has come close to matching that number, with recent efforts struggling to obtain one million subscribers at best. However, we could be about to witness the most important MMO to come along in the last five years when it launches; Star Trek Online.
Why?
For one, the Trekkie fan base dwarfs that of WoW considerably. And for another, in case you hadn’t heard, Star Trek 11 was a pretty good movie and a successful reboot that just made the franchise cool again. The buzz and anticipation is there, and, frankly, even if STO is bad, we all know the game is going to shift more than one or two copies when it goes on sale. However, my inner Trekkie just had to know if there was finally another good Trek game to sing about, as it has been way too long since the good old days of Judgement Rites and A Final Unity. After being one of the fortunate ones to bag myself an Open Beta key, and after downloading the hefty eight gig in no less than thirty six hours, I decided to make the jump into hyperspace…
After first loading up the game, I was given the choice of three classes to choose from: a science officer, tactical officer and engineering officer. Each officer has their own different set of traits that build up the foundations of the class you play throughout the game. So for example, the tactical officer is more about the accuracy and quality of your shooting, whereas the science officer is better versed in medicinal skills which can improve your overall hitpoints and how much is healed through the use of a health kit. As this is Open Beta, your choices are limited, but are sure to be expanded in the full release.
After choosing my class, I was able to enter the character customisation screen, one aspect of the Open Beta I immediately relished. I spent an entertaining half hour observing all the choices I could make to customise my character the way I saw fit. For starters, there is a choice of eight different species, all relevant within the Star Trek universe, from Bajorian to Betazoid. Unfortunately, the Open Beta has removed several species from being playable in the game including Borg, Cardassian and Romulan, but there is enough to choose from to give you a feel for how the game will play. You can even create your own species, defining them by name, creed, colour, even giving them their own history and racial perks.
Once you’ve made your selection, you can make the most basic of characters, giving them a name, their ship a name, changing their hair colour from over fifty different combinations and skin tone. Or you can be more advanced in your selections and refine the size of their forehead, how many scars or tattoos you want them to have, the structure of their eyebrows, their physique, even how close together their eyes are, similar to the levels of customisation found in Oblivion.
Once you finally get done with sculpting your character, the game throws you right in at the deep end. Your ship is under attack from a Borg invasion, and many of the crew have been badly wounded. You’re one of the few able bodied members of the crew available and so a lot more responsibilities just fell upon your shoulders. If you’re a fan of the series, then you’d be safe in assuming that as an ensign your responsibilities on board would be minor. However, you will be given opportunities to prove your worth to your crew and as you continue to prove your resourcefulness by performing the most simplistic of tasks, so you are rewarded with greater responsibility, such as beaming aboard the Borg vessel and confronting the threat.
The opening portion of STO gives the player a real feel for the variety and scope the game will offer. At first, the game will feel like a typical MMORPG; you find yourself in control of a character, using the keyboard for movement, the mouse for camera positioning, and an action assigned to each number. You’ll even get a feel for the grind as you use your phaser to blast your way through the Borg threat and destroy six of the conduits which are creating them.
After a while however, the game changes pace and places you at the helm of a federation starship facing open space. Helming a craft in the game makes for some very interesting ideas and concepts, and does give the game a much different feel from that of Final Fantasy XI or Warhammer Online. You still find that you will be assigned quests in outer space, and there is the grind element intact such as having to patrol specific quadrants to check for enemy activity or beaming survivors aboard your vessel from those that have been half-destroyed. But the feel is something completely different, and the changes do help to mix up the gameplay and keep things interesting. If allowed to develop to be a truly, free-roaming open world… well, you probably already have an idea as to how vast this project could be.
However, luckily, during most of your early experience, STO will hold your hand and take you step-by-step as a means of a tutorial and to get familiar with STO. You will be taken where you need to go, and shown how to progress to the later stages. Past that, however, you are given more liberties and freedom within the game.
Battling the Borg
Aside from differing gameplay styles, the levelling up system is also different from what you may be used to. You start the game out as an Ensign as I mentioned, but will gradually work your way up to the rank of Admiral. As Ensign there are three stripes you need to fill before you can level up, reach the next rank and become Lieutenant. By filling each of the experience bars prior to collecting each of these three stripes, you will be rewarded with skill points which you can place into stats to define your character; whether you decide to increase their damage output or resistance to a particular element. As your ranks increase, so you unlock more advanced abilities which will really factor into how you play the game. Cryptic has certainly tried to do something different and keep within the context of the Star Trek universe, but it remains to be seen whether trying to add so much complexity will benefit the long term game play experience.
It’s also gratifying to see Cryptic Studios are aware of the history and feel of the franchise, and that they have the full support of the Star Trek team. With Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto offering their voices to the game, it certainly helps add some credence to the product. When starting the game, Quinto teaches you how to get around in the world/galaxy and make the most out of STO, whereas Nimoy narrates our bold passage to where no one has gone before, set to the backing of the familiar Trekkie jingle. The graphics, which are some of the best I’ve seen in a game of this type, are really representative of Gene Roddenbery’s vision. The sound effects will also be familiar to fans of the series, whether it be the signalling of the intercom or the whirring of the tricorder, you are made to feel as if you are part of the authentic universe.
However, as the game is still in Open Beta, the product is still in an incomplete form. This is evidenced by some serious frame rate issues and lag when there are more than a few people on the screen at a time. Also some of the clipping issues are ridiculous. When I beamed down to the planet’s surface from my ship, the game then had me attempting to lead my away team on the ground as a ship model instead of a walking character. Then when I beamed back up, I found my character floating aimlessly around in Outer Space without even so much as an astronaut suit to help him breathe!
I was running the game on my Sony Vaio laptop with an Intel Centrino 2.13ghz Processor, Windows 7 and an ATI Radeon HD4570 and the game ran pretty smoothly. However, when considering the graphical output and wide scope of the title, Star Trek Online is quite demanding and I feel that without a good rig to run this game, your experience with STO may become frustrating very quickly.
The Open Beta is focused on the PVE portion of the game, which is where most people will spend their time. There is no PVP system in place as yet and the crafting system won’t be available until the official launch. What you have presented to you in Open Beta is the main storyline, taking you to a level cap of 16, the opportunity to interact with other players in-game and a feel for what makes this game different from everything else in the genre. There is certainly enough within the Open Beta to give a player perspective as to whether they want to commit to purchasing the full version come February.
Overall, Star Trek Online is probably more polished at this stage in its development than World of Warcraft was before launch. That said, as an experience, I couldn’t see me investing any further time in STO. In many respects, the game seems rushed and has just ticked every box needed to make a game in this category. Yet, in other ways it seems Cryptic have gone out of their way to make as authentic and interesting a game as possible and really given the game its own individual characterisation. Because of that, I think the experience comes across as quite conflicted, and slightly uncertain of what it wants to be. It is filled with ambition and innovation, but in order to appreciate that, you will need to invest more time to the product than you would have with WoW or Lord of the Rings Online, and I feel that may lose some people at the first initial hurdles.
I think it is fair for me to hail Star Trek Online as one of the best Star Trek games I have played in the last ten years, but that may not be the fairest compliment in light of previous Star Trek games. The beautiful thing with an MMO, and also the hardest part in giving it perspective, is that the game is ever-changing, and that upon purchasing the title and subscribing to it, the title becomes an investment. Star Trek Online will continue to develop and flourish into a bigger, bolder game. However, it will be up to Cryptic to take some of the solid foundations they’ve built in Star Trek Online and to continue to improve and develop what they have already created, rather than create larger pitfalls.
Star Trek Online is by no means a bad title so far, and it does do the franchise more credit than the likes of the horrendous DAC released mid-last year, but Cryptic still have a long way to go before STO can take its place alongside the greats in the genre. Regardless, I am very interested to see where the game goes from this point on.
Star Trek Online is officially released on 5th February 2010 for PC.
