Three-and-a-half years ago, I was bummed out. A truly underwhelming new Star Trek game had just been released, fans and players were complaining in droves, and the Dynaverse was in its death throes. Things looked dark indeed for Trekker games.

 

 

 

Fast forward to January, 2010 and Arthur C. Clarke’s mission to Jupiter never occurred, Babylon 5 is just a memory, and the Jupiter 2 can’t even get off the ground. Star Trek Online, however, is boldly going where no game has gone before.

 

To begin with, game graphics are unbelievable. There have been some recent games, such as 2001’s Bridge Commander and the somewhat more recent Eve Online that were groundbreaking in the graphics department, but neither of them can compete with the rich textures in Star Trek Online. The detail at times is stunning.

 

 

In-game missions are also varied and challenging. No longer are we limited only to space-based combat and/or mining, or carrying out repetitive “scanning” missions in order to fulfill LOS or OA requirements. No more waiting to load with other players and getting hexes, planets or bases locked in battle because someone crashed with an Unhandled Exception error. STO is not yet out of beta testing and already it’s way more stable than SFC3. Cryptic has had, I understand, a few server crashes during the Closed Beta, but those situations have been rectified within a few hours or less, unlike the fairly frequent crashes of Activision’s Dynaverse.

 

 

 

STO is also unique in that it will serve to unite the Star Trek gaming community, rather than fraction it, as the SFC series and Bridge Commander have done. Right now, we’re all on the same time: one big, happy fleet of smurfettes. But we gamers are a bloodthirsty lot, and as soon as we’re able to create Klingon and then Romulan and Cardassian characters, we’ll be out to scalp the players we love to hate. I hope Cryptic will help to soften flaring tempers by continuing the policy of allowing participants to simply respawn without penalty when their ships and/or player characters are destroyed.

 

And speaking of destroyed, do NOT take on a Negh’var battleship single-handedly unless you have an overwhelming death wish. Doc Photon’s philosophy: Never enter battle against a Klingon armed with anything smaller than a two-by-four. In-game battles against Klingons are exciting and exhausting. They may even contribute to hypertension and nervous attacks. Be warned!

 

 

 

Game controls seem a bit clunky to me. Perhaps it’s just the learning curve and after a while I’ll be able to maneuver my ship with the skill of a hungry hawk zeroing in on a scurrying cottontail. I hope that Cryptic will learn a page from the Eve Online book here when it comes to tutorials, and make the one in STO a little more comprehensive.

 

 

All in all, I find Star Trek Online to be a very cool game, and I hope to be able to patch you up online – after I’ve phasered your heart out!