Star Trek Online Review
Submitted by Tralmek on January 26, 2010 - 11:47pm.
Final Score: 4/5
Replay Value:
Star Trek Online is a game that should have excellent replay value, because it should have consistently new content, player created content, and a vast (VAST) reservoir from which to draw. Cryptic does a good job of portraying the Star Trek lore and making it acceptable to the masses. What it does not do is draw on the deepness of the Star Trek universe. The gameplay is repetitive after awhile (hint: fly around in a circle hitting spacebar), and while it's fun and seems to almost get to the point of requiring a thought, at the end of the day, the same gameplay can be found elsewhere. I'll get Star Trek Online, but I can't see playing it beyond the free trial. By then, if leveling remains as it was in the open beta I'll be an Admiral and have completed all of the content of interest to me. There is nothing about the game that calls me back.
Role-Play:
It's Star Trek through and through. As long as you're not talking about today (unless you're talking past tense haha) you're good to go on role play. I daresay the majority of people who pick up this game will have at least a passing familiarity with the Star Trek universe and be willing to humor you if you're talking in character. Overall the role play potential in this game is quite good.
Visuals:
I heard some people complaining about the graphics, but in my experience, having tried the game on high end to ultra-low end machines, I have to say the visuals scale incredibly well--a credit to Cryptic's graphics team. I consistently got good framerate during gameplay, regardless of machine. On the high end machine I never noticed the LOD working until the last day of open beta during a server stress test with dozens of player characters and hundreds of npcs doing battle. Until that time there was always a very seamless LOD transition as things got closer to my viewpoint, and even during that test I was able to retain a large amount of detail in all of the characters near to me, while losing it on some of the npcs at a distance. On the low-end machine, the LOD is more noticeable, but not terribly distracting. Nearby characters maintain a reasonable amount of detail, considering how bad the machine it was running on was. I was quite satisfied with the visual experience in STO. It did have its issues, but these were mainly due to over-doing it on particle effects, as so many modern games tend to do. I despise particle effects. Nonetheless, if they can be forgiven in *any* game, this would be the one. It's Star Trek, after all!
Presentation:
Star Trek Online has been presented quite well. Its launch preorder items were somewhat annoying, as almost ever retailer had a different one, forcing players to either buy multiple preorders of the game or to do without something they really wanted. Cryptic managed to get past the stigma many players had with the development issues early on in the Star Trek Online saga. Mention "Perpetual Entertainment" and you'll just get blank stares. No one even remembers that the people from (what is now called) P2 were involved or that the game was shelved for some time. You also will not hear too many whispers of the forbidden acronym of the other much-beloved space universe game that was so thoroughly beaten apart when its rights were licensed out to an MMO studio.... Another testament to how well Cryptic has handled the Star Trek franchise so far.
Solo Play:
Much of the ground combat in the game is scaled for a number of away team members, who can be replaced with other captains if you're grouped. This is a great way of keeping content challenging, and while it encourages group play to an extent, if a solo player keeps on top of his or her crew's skills the player should do quite well solo. Space combat can be much more challenging when going it alone, but I never came across an unsoloable battle that didn't force me into multiplayer play. There is an auto-grouping feature in the game for when you enter one of those instances, but I turned it off and still earned credit for the collective kills of everyone in the instance, same as if I were grouped. Leveling is a quick and painless process even when you're by yourself. So final answer, this game does solo play quite well. It's one of the major bonuses.
Learning Curve:
Play the tutorial once, you know the game, and it really doesn't get more complex than that. Personally I hated the map. I found it unintuitive and difficult to navigate, but after getting used to it the map was tolerable enough. The gameplay is pretty simple when you get right down to it, so if you're just paying attention to the tutorial when you go through it you'll do well.
Community:
The game had a good community, helpful and more talkative than any I've seen in quite some time. That's saying something, coming from a guy who was an Entertainer in SWG close to launch, and a guy who regularly participated in the Cantina Crawls there. That community has nothing up on Star Trek Online's when it comes to chattiness. I didn't come across any unjustified swearing or community-unfriendly chat, and every time I saw someone ask a question it was quickly and knowledgeably handled by the other players.
Content:
My biggest gripe with the game. You get lots of missions and you even take them from familiar(-ish) characters. You run missions alongside characters like Miral Paris (Daughter of B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris). Unfortunately, there seems to be a strongly limited amount of that kind of content in the game, and missions quickly become the old "rinse/repeat" grind. This is a game that could benefit greatly from Player Created Content, since there are undoubtedly fans out there playing the game who wished they could have written their own Star Trek adventures. This would be the perfect time to indulge those players' talents. It's sad that Cryptic failed to properly tap the content resources they had/have available to them.
Customization:
The game offers nearly unparalleled customization for your characters, your ships, and your crewmembers. I was pleased beyond expression about how robust the character/crew customization is. You can streamline the process by choosing a pre-built species (human, klingon, etc) and then just clicking through presets to create your character. You can go a little more advanced by choosing a pre-built species and then using the advanced options to tweak the character exactly how you want it.
If you're looking for a challenge to make a character totally from scratch, choose "Unknown Alien" and let your imagination go wild. You'll be impressed with what you can create. My first Unknown Alien was modeled after Weyoun (a Vorta administrator from Deep Space Nine). My second was Faye Valentine (of Cowboy Bebop fame). Friends made Romulans, Amphibiosans, and others. It's a great setup, and the highlight of the game for me. I always want more customization, but it's hard to ask for more than this.
Player vs. Player:
The tools for PvP content are available, and the devs have proven that they're avid supporters of the PvP lifestyle. Some of the NPC-given missions lead players into PvP situations (with warning of what it is) so I believe this is a game in which both PvP'ers, Carebears, and those in between can find a way to get along well enough.
I'm satisfied with Star Trek Online, but it suffers the stigma of being licensed material handled by an outside company. I've seen what that can do to a game, and so I warily approach any game that is not expressly the brainchild of its creators.
This is a solid game, that once it works out a few kinks with server issues and growing pains will be a fun one to play for a little while. It doesn't have any replayability value, due to not having a broad quest set to draw from, no customizable content, and no true social system (crafting, merchants, entertainers, etc) to bind people to the game long-term.
There is nothing truly compelling about the game except for the universe it's based on, but for most people--like me--who aren't hardcore trekkies, there's nothing to maintain our interest.
I can see playing STO for a month, maybe two at most. But after that, my taste for Star Trek will have been whetted, I'll have reached the highest levels and completed the highest content available. That'll be about as much as I can take of its horrible camera movement and targeting issues anyway. I've never seen a modern game tie you so closely to the camera movements they want, especially when the targeting is as borked as it is in this one. They do some targeting things well--for example, when it's not bugged, click on your allies and you automagically target what they're targeting. Cool! Target an enemy and you can see who he or she's targeting. Cool! Try to move around, change target, or fire when your camera and target aren't exactly what the game thinks you should be doing at the time and prep to be punished as your entire perspective is changed (Not changed enough? Crouch and see how cramped your view can get!) and you may or may not target what you intended. Think Tab will help? Think again.
The game is beautifully rendered on a platform that has been tested (see Champions Online) and proven to be relatively solid. After a little while of cleaning up some random server bugs and some interface issues that crop up, this should be one of the best-looking, most polished, and most scalable modern MMOs on the market. Whether others will find more replay value than I, or if Cryptic will work to alleviate the void of content existing at the moment, only they know. If they do, it could become one of the best long-term MMO experiences out there.
Check out our Star Trek Online photo gallery!
