Review – Star Trek Online

Publisher: Atari
Developer: Cryptic Studios
Platform(s): PC
Genre: Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game

Rating: Teen
ESRB Content Descriptors: Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes

The Scoop: Cryptic Studios’ latest MMO does what no Star Trek game has done before: luring in non-Star Trek fans with a beautiful and great Star Trek game.

The Setup: When Cryptic Studios first announced Star Trek Online, I was quite skeptical. I’m a fan of Star Trek, but the big Star Trek nerd in me died out about high school. Nevertheless, when an advance copy came my way, I was somewhat eager to see how it would fair. Fortunately for Cryptic, it is a well built and well thought-out MMO.

Star Trek Online is set 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis and is set in the “prime” universe, the universe that has all the original TV shows and the first ten movies. It also includes events from the J.J. Abrams reboot. Romulus has been destroyed and Spock is only around as your narrator when you enter a new sector. The game begins with a Borg attack, and your ship is sent to help out. After saving a ship you quickly find out that your Ensign has been combat promoted to Captain your ship.

Readers of Level Up News understand how we always compile the best and worst sides of video games for our readers. But it’s always hard to describe the good and bad points of any MMO because the game and playing experience is constantly changing. Nevertheless, this is what you can expect when you first boot up your game.

What’s Hot: If you took out everything involved with Star Trek–rename planets and aliens, redo the plot a little–it’s still a solid science fiction/space MMO. Your starships turn like naval vessels in space should, each with their own customizable weapon slots, giving a bit of strategy in your battles. Each ship also has your personal bridge crew so you can buff your powers or fellow players. And if you find yourself going on away missions without any other captains, the bridge NPCs act as support character so you don’t have to fight an entire army by yourself. Each bridge crew officer has their own set of powers you can use, so you really have the experience of being the captain of your own ship. Of course, Cryptic Studios also took joining parties to a new level by allowing instant team-ups. If you’ve entered a system and there are other players on the same mission, the game will automatically team you up.

Finally there’s the character customization. Champions Online did a good job with customization options for your own super hero and super villain. However, Star Trek Online takes it a step further in being able to not only customize your character and your officers uniforms, but being able to actually customize your own race. Fans of Star Trek know that there are countless hundreds of races out there, but you can actually be able to customize your very own species, and customize your bridge officer’s species as well.

What’s Not: Unfortunately, Star Trek Online is currently experience a lot of down time, which has players upset. But with any new game, you always run the risk of unexpected downtime here and there. There are also several glitches in the game, such as not being able to complete scanning quests, unable to customize bridge officers with the special downloadable uniforms, or even having enemies’ weapons pass right through your ships personal shielding and taking out your ship instantaneously. But as I said before, MMO’s are constantly changing and while they may be a problem as of now, throughout subsequent testing and error reports they become few and few.

Final Verdict: What first for me seemed like an MMO that was going to be laughed at soon turned out to become an MMO that clearly had some well thought behind it and not some generic space game with Star Trek slapped on the cover. After trying the game out for several days, I have even canceled my subscription to Champions Online. For anyone looking for a great space MMO, Star Trek fan or not, Star Trek Online delivers excitement beyond any space MMO seen thus far.