 Star Trek Online |
| Review Date: August 7, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Yu-jin Chia, Cupertino, CA USA |
While I would not by any means call myself a diehard Trekkie, I have generally enjoyed the franchise- including quite a few older PC games. A friend recommended this game to me, and being quite sick of fantasy MMOs, I decided to give it a swing.
Star Trek Online (STO) is a massive multi game, and has most of the typical elements present in such: levels, gear, crafting, PvP, quests, zones, customization, etc. It differs from most other such games in more than setting, however. For one, it's heavily space combat oriented and your character is as much a ship as a captain. It's also a lot more forgiving than most such games, and is generally easier to pick up and play.
There are three general classes: tactical, engineering, and science. These correspond roughly to three ship types: escorts, cruisers, and science vessels. Technically you can use any ship you want, but abilities and bonuses are clearly aimed at the corresponding type. Each role has its strengths and weaknesses; for example, tactical/escort has high DPS and maneuverability, but has weaker defenses and fewer support skills. This applies both in space and on the ground, and the differences are enough to make it worth rerolling. Aside from your captain, you have bridge officers that also have classes, and whose abilities you can use. At present there's two playable factions: Federation and Klingon. Your first character has to be a Fed, but Klingons start at a higher level. Most of the PvE content in the game at the moment is, unsurprisingly, for Federation players.
Quests are pretty typical and rather repetitive. They are all some variant of 'destroy x enemies,' or 'scan x objects,' and sometimes include combinations and chains. The narrative is somewhat interesting, if also lacking in voice effects and unique graphics. Locations are relatively diverse, but you'll rarely see something that will make you say 'wow.' Almost all quests can be done solo, though you can also group up. Entering a space area with other people enables you to form a group, which is sometimes (and sometimes not) done automatically. There are also some special encounters similar to raids, where you're expected to have large numbers of participants. There are also PvP quests and rewards, which are comparable to PvE ones. In most cases, there's nothing stopping you from wandering into high level areas, and you can also adjust the difficulty up if it's too easy. This results in better drops, which can get you some really fast cash (credits, however, are rarely an issue). You can choose from the gamut of gear, ranging in grade and rarity, and there's an auction house and mail system in place. Most other MMO elements, e.g. guilds (called 'fleets' here), item binding, base nodes, are all present.
The game is very forgiving, especially on normal difficulty. There is no death penalty at all in this mode; on higher modes there's a chance you or your ship will be 'injured' if destroyed, and this gives you a penalty until you use a recovery item. Not exactly devastating at any rate. The auction house takes no cut and has no deposit. If you die, you respawn at the last save point and enemies that have suffered damage remain damaged. It is generally quite easy to gain experience, level up, get better gear (some quests give top level gear) and generally stay competitive. Common items are not significantly worse than even the rarest, so using 'epic' equipment is largely a luxury. You can recustomize your ship, character, and bridge officers at any given time in both appearance and skills. It costs money, but essentially nothing is permanent. Most of the missions can be finished in a few minutes, which along with the other aspects noted above, means this game is great for casual players.
Space combat is the meat of the game, and is very similar to the old Starfleet Command series. Everything down to the power levels, weapon firing arcs, and various weapon types is present. Most of it is nearly identical; for example, heavy plasma torps do a ton of damage but can be shot down en route- exactly like in SFC II. You can juggle shield facing and settings, use a wide variety of interesting abilities, and equip your ship with a huge array of different weapons that are both fun to use and unique. Simply put, this is what most Star Trek fans dream of- and it's very well executed.
On the negative side, ground combat is currently in a really primitive state. To call it 'clunky' is something of an understatement, and it's rather boring even when you have higher level skills. Mostly, it involves standing and shooting at someone until they drop, then hitting tab and doing it again. It's also unavoidable, though thankfully seems a lot less common than space combat. There's also quite a few bugs that need to be ironed out, and content variety is a bit lacking. The only really interesting thing you'll see as you progress in levels are new enemies with different weapons. While this is somewhat interesting, you generally will be sick of seeing them by the time you're high enough to leave the area. You'll also more than likely be sick of your ship by the time you finally get a new one. On a final note, there is a lot of server downtime at the moment- almost every day there's maintenance, and disconnects are quite frequent. Cryptic is clearly doing a lot of work on the game, which is good, but it's also rather irritating when you see a patch every login and get kicked off every night.
A note on the collector's ed: it includes several uniforms and a decent device item. It's an OK value, though most of the bonuses are cosmetic. To summarize: STO is a good game for casual players and ST fans, though it's not exactly going to blow you away. It has decent gameplay where it matters (read: space combat) but needs a bit of work in some others. In short, as with most other new MMOs, it's a work in progress. Worth checking out? I would say yes, though I'm not exactly rushing to buy the lifetime membership. |
Lackluster
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| Review Date: June 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Brent Butler, North Carolina |
As a Star Trek fan since I watched the first episode broadcast in 1966, I had high hopes for this game. I've played games of all sort my entire life, and over the last few years spent quite a bit of time in World of Warcraft.
Sadly, this game just didn't deliver for me.
The graphics are not very good, and that was an initial disappointment that did not improve.
There were bugs in the beginner training missions. To get past one of them I had to abandon the character I had started with and begin the game all over again. This was after the game had been out for some months ... so there was no excuse for those kind of bugs in the starting missions that everyone has played since their early beta.
I found the method of looting technology/earning brownie points and then returning to a starbase to buy upgrades for your ship to be contrived and poorly conceived.
The space battles weren't any fun either. They were slow moving, and your options are somewhat limited. Now, its conceivable that there is something more in the advanced game. However, I was unwilling to sit thru hour after hour of boredom, replete with poor graphics, in the possibly unrequited hope that I would reach more interesting game mechanics or content.
I know from reading development notes over the years of this game's construction that the foundation of the game mechanics were substantially reworked a couple of times before retail release. They should have given it at least one more shot. It was easy to understand how translating being a member of Star Fleet didn't lend itself well to an MMORPG. If it was at all possible, it was going to take a brilliantly conceived design idea that would have to be expertly realized in the programmed product. They obviously did not have the minds or talent on hand to accomplish that.
Sadly, this product probably is a waste of everyone's time and money in this form. I'll say that it was OK for a few hours to watch an avatar of myself run around in a Starfleet uniform and see a few things in their game universe. However, any interest from that faded quickly, and bear in mind that as a life long fan of Star Trek, I was predisposed to give them the benefit of the doubt.
However, I do REALLY like the pin on comm badge that I got in my collector's edition! LOL |
Awful
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| Review Date: June 14, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Logos1322, USA |
I have been playing since it launched but logged in for the final time last week. This game is horribly instanced. There is no open space, instead you control your ship from a small sector map. You can get onto your bridge but it has no in game function. Combat is buggy, especially ground combat. Enemies will regularly one-shot you or gang you to make up for the broken AI. PvP is a joke, hardly anyone participates anymore. When you finally find a match it is unbalanced, 10 on 1 or similar. The Klingon faction is unfinished and only gets token updates, nothing significant.
Graphically the game is pretty but that's all it really has going for it. Crafting is awful, missions are repetitive, and there is no end game content.
One big note if you are thinking about buying the collector's edition!! DON'T BUY IT FOR BONUS ITEMS!! As of 6/14/10, Cryptic has already announced that the items offered in the collector's edition are now available to every player regardless of what game they purchased. So save your money and buy the cheapest one if you must have this. The same applies to lifetime subscriptions, ALL BONUS CONTENT that was offered to lifetime subscribers is now being made available for every player. So again don't spend a lot of money buying this game for the advertised bonuses because they are nothing more than another way to get you to plop down more money than you need to to buy this game. The fact that they are already having to do this along with a recent welcome back weekend and the game hasn't even been live for four months yet should tell you something.
Finally research their forums before you buy this. Do your research and do not impulse buy this one. Lots of people were let down by this game, by Cryptic, and Atari don't let yourself be another one.
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Complete and utter Garbage
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| Review Date: May 31, 2010 |
| Reviewer: David P. Briggs, Silverton, Ohio United States |
No matter how you slice it, this 'Game' will leave a bad taste in your mouth and a hole in your wallet. Beware of any game that cuts it's price in half after only being out a few months. This game is Garbage from start to finish. It IS NOT Star Trek by any stretch of the imagination. It's a generic space shoot em up wrapped (badly) in the Star Trek license. From the moment you log in, you know it's going to be horrible just by looking at the extremely dated graphics and sloppy and clumsy movement. Get used to your "F" key as you press it for everything including shooting everything in sight...no matter what. You can only be federation from the start (Which is cheesy itself) and you have more fun creating your character then playing the game. You will reach max level after about two weeks desperately waiting for Cryptic to make new content. The crafting is a complete joke as well. DO NOT buy the Collectors edition as just about everything you get as an exclusive is available throughout the game (Or they go heavy on micro transactions and make you buy little extras that aren't worth actual money) and they cheat you out of things that are completely useless in the game.
This game is an embarrassment to Star Trek and hopefully it fails as Cryptic is only interested in the money they make and NOT the quality of their product nor the fans that love Trek for what it is. This is 2010 and MMORPG'S have a standard now. This game may have worked in 1998 but is a joke now. This is the type of refuse you would expect from a free to play but most free to play games are better than this money grab game.
Stay clear of this and wait for a real game or get a free game pass which will convince you in the first 30 minutes that you would rather go into the desert and dig up one of the old ET games than play this fail game. |
If your looking for fun,new and different you found it
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| Review Date: May 24, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Travis M. Erck, Chicago, IL |
I'm not going to make this a long review of the game. But, some point are valid but recent patches have improved
game mechanics, missions have more excitement and star trek lore, there are raids, crafting improved but still dull.
Recent patches have made PvP fun, more quests that are epic feeling and just fun, there are fleet action beyond lietenant that just are wildly fun.
You get great drops for hard work, if you look and fight in the right places and pay attention to your skills you can be at the top of your ranks and get great drops. The game is for the skilled. The new difficulty slider tells you how your going to own up in PvP matches and in fleet actions. You can be harmed and damaged now dying will cost you this time. The auction house is fully functioning and the economy is beginning to establish. Lifetime subs get excellent perks!
Season two isn't out but the game is heading on the right thrusters. Out of four thrusters they got three of them going. I imagine when the Klingon PvE content comes this game will be the WoW of the sci fi universe. It's fun, the quests are becomeing more exciting. The game is not so easy. Watch out for the enemy AI a klingon may have reverse shield polarity and when you fire a burst you may get blown into the stars. They've made the AI smarter, harder and fancy. If I compared to launch there isn't a comparison. However I'd wait until season 2 but this game is well on it's way to become the wow of the sci fi mmorpg market.
The mmorpg is there. Be open be aware just like any other mmo there is a noob ground to get used to the mechanics. Until you reach Lietenant Commander your on training wheels and the game is centered on making it easy on you. All bets are off when you reach LC. Prepare to brace for impact.
You can now build better gear memmory alpha has been enhanced.
Crafting is in the process of getting significant changes and some already implemented.
Skill make sense now and there is a drop down for every skill it tells you what path to put your points in.
There are endless trees to follow. The game is so very different from anything out there I have to give this 4 stars. I'd give it 5 if it weren't the klingon content and crafting getting fixed up but they said Season 2 in July its coming.
What are you waiting for! Get back in this game. |
A solid effort, but ultimately disappointing
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| Review Date: May 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: TimeLord75, Jacksonville, FL (USA) |
When I first heard that Cryptic Studios was taking over production of STO from Perpetual Entertainment, I was thrilled. Perpetual had effectively done everything in its power to alienate the Trekkers who would be playing the game, and Cryptic had a solid reputation with me from their work done on City of Heroes/Villains.
Star Trek Online ultimately proved disappointing to me. I bought the Collector's Edition, which is very nicely packaged and includes a slew of freebie passes to hand out to your friends, a cool-looking replica of the new combadge featured in the game, and a very nice selection of production art. The game installs easily and once the patcher finishes updating, you're ready to go. Character creation is very involved, enabling you to customize virtually to your heart's content. Human, Vulcan, Bolian, Betazoid, non-joined Trill, Andorian...or get really creative & invent your very own 100% original Star Trek alien species! You choose Tactical, Engineering or Science career path, the only difference between which is the powers granted for use in space & ground combat.
Combat is the primary focus of STO, with a greater subjective focus on ground combat over space--which was sad for me, because I enjoyed space combat so much more. There's minimal "exploration", really no boldly going anywhere 100's of players haven't already been. There is an economy, which is strange really, but nice work has been done trying to shoehorn it into the canon. The levelling pace in STO is INSANE. You begin as a lowly Ensign. You're rapidly promoted to Lieutenant, and from there you'll go to Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain, and finally Rear Admiral. Each rank (aside from Ensign, which has 1, and RA which has 5) has 10 ranks. I rocketed all the way through to RA5 in what felt like no time at all, and I soloed 98% of the game. (This from the guy who took ~4 years to finally get 1 character to level 50 in City of Villains.) Unfortunately, STO suffers the exact same disease as any other MMO: Once you get to max level, there are only two things to do: PvP & large-scale raids. Since I'd rather gouge out my heart with a plastic butterknife than do either of those, I guess I'm done.
Klingon play is 99% PvP. There's some minimal PvE content, and they say there's more coming, but...meh.
I liked my time in STO. I want to love this game. Unfortunately, it was all over too fast & wound up feeling really rather empty. There's very little "Star Trek" feeling to the game; I know that's a meaningless statement without some examples to back it up, but I suppose it's more subjective than anything else. There are other players in the game--you see them whizzing past in their own starships--but there's no real conversation. No chatter, no roleplay, no...nothing. It's a Massively Single-Player Online Not-Quite-Role-Playing Game. |
"'Collector's Edition' exclusives" described
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| Review Date: April 27, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Jason Arnold, Canada |
There's an exhaustive amount of "I love this game" vs "Don't waste your time" reviews out there - I'll leave that part up to you. I sprung for the "Collector's Editon" box after spending too much time waffling over the 'is it worth it?' factor of the physical "bonus items" (versus just getting a digital edition) so, in case you're in the same boat, read on:
"Deluxe Packaging - Futuristic 3dX holography set in a high quality brushed aluminum finish."
Far nicer than your average retail game box. A hidden magnetic catch keeps everything contained and overall it has a nice 'gift box' appearance inside and out. The holograph is a nice touch but, don't be fooled, the 'brushed aluminum' is simply a matte silver decal over a sturdy cardboard box.
"Deluxe Manual - Hardbound, art book, manual, and disc case in a single, elegant package."
Since the 'art book' portion of this package is what ultimately sold me on buying this edition, I'll tell you a bit about it. Physically, the quaility is very nice; content-wise, I was left wanting. Since the Trek universe is so vast and this game was in development for like 5 years, I'd hoped for some cool behind-the-scenes/concept art/sketches/process work here, but the 30ish pages of 'art' are sadly light on substance: basically stylized screen captures and 2 pages of stuff I hadn't already seen on the website. Ultimately, I WOULD NOT recommend buying this editon on the merit of the art book alone. I did and I regret it.
"Communicator Badge - High quality cast metal design based on the in-game badge model."
A nice collectible: solid with a nice brushed finish; wearable if you like (attaches using 2 typical pin backs, sadly no hole-saving low profile magnets here).
"Guest Passes - Credit card style buddy passes entitling friends for a ten day game trial."
A nice touch - they look pretty cool and are a good value for getting your friends in on the action.
The rest of the features (Red Matter Capacitor, Next Generation Uniform, Deep Space Nine Uniform) are in-game features that I haven't gotten around to checking out yet - might edit these in to the review later. |
Could be fun, except for messy UI and lack of information
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| Review Date: April 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: J. J. Martin, Arizona, USA |
| This game looks great, but the lack of supporting materials even in the special edition is concerning. I have played other games fromt this vendor that are much more straight forward. Nothing is intuitive in the UI. When I looked online to find ANYBODY with information on how to perform necessary tasks, I was constantly referred to a group of 6-10 manuals by a third party at $20 a piece. After a month I cancelled my subscription. I will monitor over the summer in case some reputable main stream company puts out an all inclusive strategy guide, but I am not going to pay $120+ for the one by killer games??? If you have unlimited time to use trial and error, you could like this game, but for us weekend gamers this was a lesson in frustration. |
Star Trek Online is Okay
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| Review Date: April 3, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Albert S. Hood, Austin, TX |
So after playing the headstart for many days, I finally had to buy the retail product. After searching around for weeks Amazon had several sales that allowed me to get the game for $40 off on the Collectors or $30 on regular with coupons.
I took the offer because as-is the game is okay, but it may not hold the interest of MMO vterans for long. For Star Trek fans, you will enjoy the game and as long as death penalthjy and progression stay the same you should get to the end game stuff in a month of play. Game is casual focused and like otherss say it is a single player instance gem with multiplayer components.
Enjoy! |
Steaming Pile of Refuse
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| Review Date: April 2, 2010 |
| Reviewer: A. Sica, |
As a long time Star Trek Fan and an avid gamer, I was eagerly awaiting ST:O and the promise it held. While I really wanted to love this game, shortcomings in its fundamental gameplay are impossible to ingnore. Rather than ramble on about my dissapointment, lets just break it down into the basics.
The Good:
Installed and activated painlessly.
Runs smoothly on my two year old rig.
Comes with 30 days of free play before you have to pay per month.
Episodes, basically story missions, are occassionaly interesting enough to make you want to plow through all the warts to see where they lead.
Generally a very friendly, Trek saavy community of players out there willing to help out new players and generate some fun playing this game.
The Not so Good:
Its a combat game, plain and simple. If you are looking for a deeper Star Trek experience than fighting the various bad guys you've come to know and love as a fan of the series, look elsewhere. Of course, this isn't a killer in and of itself, as I really do like a good combat game. Too bad this isn't one of them.
Episodes are a mixed bag. Many are solid but others are just inexplicably poor.
Graphics, even maxed out, aren't really all that much to write home about. Space and land combat zones really don't have a tremendous amout of variety. It doesn't take long to have seen most of what there is to see.
The leveling system never really gets to be a grind as you are likely to give up way before you spend any time grinding up levels.
The Bad
Its not fun.
The Core gameplay mechanics are just dull.
Space Combat is ultra simplistic until very late in the game. Circle strafe, fire phasers until shields are down, fire photon torpedoes to finish. Amazing how 2D space combat feels. Its telling that you have 4 shields, not 6. (yep, North, South, East, West. No dorsal or ventral, i.e. top or bottom shields). Space combat has been done so much better in so many different ways, i.e. Homeworld, Empire at War, heck even Freelancer.
Ground Combat is just ultra horrible. Squad based, 3rd person shooter is perhaps the best way to describe it. Your avatar, the captain, will be taking point. Always. Run in, shoot until they are dead or you die. It looks lousy and plays even worse.
Missions - the bulk of your time will be spent here. Missions are no more complicated that go here, kill all bad guys or go here and press "F" on these 10 things.
Skill system - an impenatrable mess. You will be presented with an abundance of skill options, 80% of which have no discernable impact on gameplay. Most of the effects take place behind the scenes, and the game does nothing to pull aside the veil. Unless you read up in advance by trolling the forums, you'll end up leveling skills more or less at random, wondering if they really do anything. As far as I can tell, you can get pretty far without really paying any attention to what skills you pick.
Frustrating madness moments : One of my favorite head scratching moments from the early game really sums up the ground game. In a mision on a damaged ship, you fight through a freighter overrun by pirates to save the stranded crew. You fight to them along a linear path (pressing "F" on flashing things along the way) and then when you get to them, you don't beam out. No, you turn around and fight through the exact same path (conveniently repopulated by beamed in baddies) to get back to where you initially beamed in. Guess what happens when you get there? You beam back to the ship! Best part? In what must have been a glitch, the rescued crewmen didn't actually beam out with me. I watched my team de-materialize as the crewmen watched helplessly as their ship fell apart around them. Actually the high comedy moment of my first 10 hours of gameplay.
Conclusions:
In summary, this is really two combat games in one, one worse than the next. It happens to be set in the Star Trek universe, which is nice, but the core gameplay itself leaves so much to be desired that I worry no amount of new "content" short of a game engine overhaul, can give this game any staying power. Too bad really. If you can get your hands on a buddy trial, I strongly reccomend it. I was able to determine this game was not a good fit for me in the first 10 hours of gameplay.
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