Some Sunday afternoon sillyness…

Star Trek Meets Monty Python

Review: Star Trek Online (PC)

As I mentioned in the Star Trek Online History post, i’ve been playing around in Star Trek Online since Closed Beta. I wanted to point out, this is very much a review of the live game experience. You may see a number of reviews out there that are based on the reviewers beta experiences, but that’s extremely unfair on the work Cryptic put into STO before launch. The difference between the live game and the awful ‘car crash’ of a beta test in terms of stability and playability are light years apart… Not that there aren’t still issues…

U.S.S. Geektown

These are the voyages of the Starship, Geektown…

At least they would be if you could log into the server…We’re a few weeks past live release and as far as I can work out, Cryptic seem to running STO on some old networked Spectrum ZX81s powered by hamsters in running wheels. I’m sure they’ll upgrade them soon… maybe get in some Commodore 64s powered by badgers on treadmills. However, this minor annoyance (which is slowly turning into mild irritation after the 3rd server crash today), does give me a break from playing to write this review.

Character Creation

You can pick to play as a Tactical (damage/tank), Engineer (support/survivability), or Science (healing/support) Officer. You’re limited to Federation (Fed) until level 6, where you unlock the Klingon Empire, in a similar way to how Lord of the Ring Online runs it’s ‘Monster Play’. Like ‘Monster Play’, the Klingon side is very much a PvP focused, cut down version of the main game. Choices for Fed races include Human (obviously), Andorian, Bajoran, Betazoid, Bolian, Saurian, Trill, Vulcan, and ‘Alien’. The character customisation is tempered depending on your race, however if you do want to go nuts, you can always pick the alien option, which basically unlocks all the sliders and lets you create your own wacky species. Your race determines your basic look and some of your starting abilities. Betazoids for example are empathic (reducing threat generation), where as Bajorans are creative (increasing skills with ‘kits’ – items that give you extra abilities). You then can pick your costume, which come in a variety of Starfleety type options.

Boldly Going…

Star Trek Online

Being a traditionalist, I picked a human tactical officer as my first character. After a intro voiced by Leonard Nimoy, I pop up in the mess hall on the U.S.S. GeekTown (a Miranda Class Light Cruiser) with red alerts blaring all around. It seems the Borg are trying to assimilate a nearby ship, so I’m instructed to beam over to their medical bay to see if I can give some help to the emergency medical hologram (who sounds suspiciously like Syler from Heroes…) Once a few crewmen are patched up, I’m sent to engineering to blow some Borg out of an airlock, and then fight my way to a transporter, where I get to pick a my first bridge crew.

Bridge Crew serve 2 main purposes. Firstly, they man stations on your ship. As you up level up and get bigger and better ships, you gain more crew, and more advanced station configurations. For example, the Enterprise like Cruiser Class has 2 engineering stations, 1 science, and 1 tactical, where as the Defiant style Escort class has 2 tactical, 1 science and 1 engineering station. Each bridge crew member has their own set of space skills, such as my new vulcan science officer, has a tachyon beam skill that lowers the shields on an enemy ship.

Your Bridge Crew’s second purpose is to serve as party members for the ground missions when your not grouped with friends - side note: when you are grouped with friends, it means the Captains from each ship all form the away team… which I’m sure must breach some Starfleet rule on officer safety… – Again each crew member has a variety of skills, such as the science officer’s medical tricorder, or the engineers turrets and mines.

Space… The Final Frontier…

Beautiful spacescapes

Moving on a bit through the starter mission, I find myself battling a Borg Cube. Thankfully, I’m not on my own. This fight takes the form of a fleet mission, where as you enter the zone, your automatically grouped with other players to take on larger objectives (if you’ve familiar with Champions Online or Warhammer, you’ll be aware of this form of open mission).

I’ve see a number of reviews where people describe STO space combat as fairly slow, but it’s really more depends on the class of ship. Cryptic do need to try and keep the ‘Trekness’ in the game, and to see the Enterprise suddenly pull a ‘handbrake turn’, spin 180, and launch a barrage of cannon fire straight at a Klingon really wouldn’t seem very ‘Trek’. However, if you do want  more maneuverability, once you reach level 11 you can choose to take an Escort class ship (e.g. DS9′s Defiant), which gives you a much nimbler ride, with a whole array of forward facing turrets, but does sacrifice survivability.

Overall I find the space combat mechanics good fun, even if the missions themselves can be rather repetitive – Go here, kill 5 Klingon ships… then kill 5 more Klingon ships… then 5 more etc… There are some variations, but that usually just involves flying to something and hitting the ‘F’ key to scan/repair/interact with it in some way.

Ahead, Warp Factor 5

Warp travel interface

Travelling through space is a different matter. One of the most disappointing things for me was mechanism to warp from planetary system to planetary system. Whilst inside a system, you get to see your ship in these stunningly beautiful spacescapes, scattered with asteroids, nebulas and planets. However, during warp travel, your ship model is thrown onto stylised tactical map interface, which totally pulls you out of any immersion. What would have been great during the warp travel would have been the ability to wander around my ship, or some interaction on the bridge (you can visit your bridge in STO, but it’s basically an instanced room, so you can’t travel in warp and be on the bridge at the same time). The system map interface just instantly made the STO universe seem small and ‘game like’, rather than the vast openness of space it really should be.

Ground Combat

Ground Combat

I beam down to a planet, my newly acquired science officer with me for backup, to show some Borg the business end of a phaser rifle. I have an issue with the ground combat in STO as I’ve had with other Cryptic’s games. I’m sure Cryptic’s proprietary MMO engine makes it easier and quicker for them to develop, but it has this horrible ‘elasticy’ feel to it. Their always seems to be a delay between action and consequence. Throw a grenade, it lands and explodes. Count 1… 2… 3… and then people fall down from the blast. I’m positive it’s not a lag issue, as there was a similar issue with Champions Online, and even City of Heroes. The engine just has this ‘floaty’ feel to it which makes the ground combat feel less solid than most of its counterpart MMOs.

Another issue is the away team AI, which seems to stands for Artificial Idiocy. It is vastly improved from beta, but you do still find yourself occasionally tracking back across a map because you’ve just noticed your tactical officer is stuck trying to walk through a wall somewhere. They also have a tendency to think running through the fire created by the plasma grenade they’ve just thrown is a genius idea. All in all, not Starfleet’s best and brightest.

The Interface

Whilst STOs main player interface is perfectly adequate overall, there are a few basic things that really bug me. Why is it Cryptic still can’t make an auction interface that actually has a decent number of search filters on it? Same goes for any of their NPC shopping interfaces. I can only imagine the conversation went something like “Shall we put some filters on this?”… “Nah, just whack everything into one MASSIVE list, and jumble it all together so it takes them forever to find anything, it’ll be fine!”

Also, given your dealing with Star Trek, surely the obvious thing to do would would be to base it round a LCARS interface? Michael Okuda went to a massive amount of trouble designing LCARS for the Trek universe, and it’s just disappointing there isn’t even a vague nod to it in STO, rather than some generic MMO graphics.

Boldly Going...

But is it Star Trek?

The ship designs and uniforms are very Trek. The history/lore of the universe is tied in nicely to the Trek timeline. They even have Nimoy (and Quinto) doing voice work. But I can’t help thinking, what would Gene Roddenberry say if he saw it? I rather suspect he’d be extremely disappointed in the over reliance on space battles to entertain, rather than exploring and plot. Star Trek was never about combat. It was about exploring new world. Boldly going where no one had gone before. If any game needed an EVE-like vast openness of space, it was Star Trek Online. Instead you get a bunch of instances held together by a map.

Conclusion

Although there are a number of negatives in this review, I am enjoying my time in Star Trek Online. I’ve made lieutenant commander, and am heading toward my next level of ship. It’s just overall, i see it as a missed opportunity to do something great with such a rich and textured license. I would have loved STO to have been more of a Star Trek universe, rather than just a Cyptic game with a Star Trek license slapped over the top. It’s more an MMOG than MMORPG. The role playing bit has got lost somewhere along the way. As someone mentioned in ‘system chat’ last week – “We all know we’re just treading water till Star Wars: The Old Republic comes out”… And unfortunately for Cryptic, i think that’s probably true.

7/10 – Fun in places but a missed opportunity.

Tired of all the Vulcans and outer space? Get back down to earth at moonbingo!

Star Trek Online - A History

To be honest with you, a few weeks ago I was all set to rip into Star Trek Online. I’ve been in game since closed beta, and I thought the chances of Cryptic ever managing to get STO into a decent playable state in time for launch were slimmer than convincing a Klingon to take up vegetarianism.  However I’m happy to report, thanks to some around the clock work by the development teams, they really managed to pull it out of the bag.

We’ll have a full review up soon, but in preparation for that, I wanted to post a bit about the extensive work Cyrptic have done weaving STO into the Star Trek canon.

When is Star Trek Online Set?

Star Trek Online in the original Shatner/Kirk timeline (as opposed to the new JJ Abrams Pine/Kirk alternative movie timeline). Events take place in 2409, about 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis (putting it about 145 years after Star Trek: The Original Series). Cryptic have neatly timelined the history of the Star Trek universe from Nemesis, through the events of Abrams movie which lead to the current state of the galaxy.

Star Trek Online: A Brief History

In 2379 following the death of Praetor Shinzon (during the events of ST:Nemesis), Romulus and Remus are plunged into an all out civil war. Never ones to stay out of a good rumble, the Klingon Empire decides take advantage of the chaos and wade into Romulan territory, much to the disapproval of the Federation. On an opposing front, old Klingon rivalries with the Gorn Hegemony (later backed by the Norsicans) flair up into full blow war.

Ambassador Spock

In 2387 the galaxy is threatened by the Hobus star going supernova. Federation ambassador to the Romulans, Spock, proposes that the Romulans transport the precious mineral Decalithium to Vulcan, where they can convert it into ‘red matter’ capable of turning the star into a black hole, negating its threat. The Romulan senate refuse, however Spock finds an ally in Nero, the leader of the Romulan miners who agrees to secretly transport the Decalithium. On Vulcan, things don’t quite go as planned when the Vulcan Council vote against Romulan’s having access to red matter, infuriating Nero.

Returning to Romulus, Nero discovers Hobus has gone supernova (far faster than anyone thought possible) destroying Romulus, killing his wife and child. Driven mad with grief, he has his ship (the Narada) refitted with Borg technology, and goes to take revenge on the Vulcans, who he blames for failing to stop the supernova.

Spock takes a ship (known as the Jellyfish) which has now been fitted with the red matter weapon and destroys the supernova, only to be chased down by Nero. The Narada appears to attack Spock just as the black hole resulting from the supernova’s destruction appears to swallow both the Jellyfish, and the Narada… (see the 2009 Star Trek movie to see what happened to them!)

In 2391 what remains of the Romulan Empire finally manage to halt the invading Klingon forces at Zeta Pectoris.

In 2395, Ja’rod, lead of the Klingon house of Duras, is attacked by the 3 shapeshifting Undine (ST: Voyager’s Species 8472). Capturing and torturing one of his attackers, Ja’rod discovers the Undine’s planned to replace him on the Klingon High Command. This leads the Klingon’s to become even more aggressive and mistrusting of other races.

Orion

In 2402 the Klingon (now teamed up with the Orions) win a decisive victory over the Gorns/Norsicans, taking control of the Gorn homeworld. It’s only then do they discover that the Gorn Council had fallen foul of the Undine, who had been manipulating the Gorn’s into conflict with the Klingons. This results into the Klingon, Gorn, Norsicans and Orions all joining forces under the Klingon banner.

In 2404, the Klingons finding themselves emboldened by this new alliance decide to turn their attention to the Federation, invading the Hiromi Cluster, followed by invading the Archanis Sector in 2406… The Federation have no choice but to retaliate plunging the Klingons and Federation into a full blow war once again…

2409 – What happens next? You decide!

Calling Star Trek Online players…

It’s the t-shirt you know you’ve always wanted (well, since Beta anyway!)
Now you can ask the question that’s on every Star Trek Online player’s lips by wearing your…

‘Where is Sulu?’ T-Shirt!

100% cotton t-shirts available in a various sizes, and a wide variety of colours (or just stick with traditional Star Trek graphics style ‘black and yellow’.)

Click here to see both ‘Where is Sulu?’ T-Shirts, or click on the picture below to jump straight to them!

Where Is Sulu? T-Shirt (Male)

Where Is Sulu? T-Shirt (Female)

2009 was a pretty good year for the sci-fi film. Not only did it produce the movie that’s well on the way to becoming the highest grossing movie of all time, but also some great little sci-fi gems that you may have overlooked. So heres GeekTown’s top 5 list of sci-fi movies from the last 12 months:

GeekTown’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Movies Of 2009

Watchmen

5. Watchmen

Watchmen got a fairly mixed reception on release. Yes, it did lose some of the weight of the Moore/Gibbons source material, but considering the number of people that had said it was ‘unfilmable’, and the directors that had been attached to the project and given up, I think Zack Snyder did an decent job with it. Maybe it wasn’t a unique as the comic book fans wanted, but Zack still made a very complex graphic novel into a perfectly fine, engaging superhero movie.

Avatar

4. Avatar

Currently on it’s way to sinking Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time, James Cameron proves once again with Avatar that he doesn’t know how to make a non-smash hit movie. The lush visual world Cameron creates on Pandora, and the groundbreaking CGI work used to create the Na’vi set a new benchmark for special effects in film.

For our full review of Avatar and the Avatar premiere, click here.

3. Moon

Moon

Moon is probably the least well know of the films in this list, but is well worth seeking out on DVD/Blu-ray if you haven’t seen it yet. Duncan Jones makes a stunning directorial debut, in a clever film that has far more in common with the distopian sci-fis of the early 70s rather than your Avatar style blockbuster. The film is practically a one man show for the lead Sam Rockwell, who turns in a performance that (if there’s any justice) really should gain him an Oscar nomination.

Created for the tiny sum (in filmic terms) of $5 million, Moon proves you don’t need a massive Hollywood budget to create impressive, intelligent sci-fi.

For our full review of Moon click here.

2. District 9

District 9

District 9 was another of those films that crept up through the summers massive blockbusters of giant robots and pointy clawed mutants to slap them around the face and show you didn’t need a massive budget to make great sci-fi. Shot for a modest $30 million, Neill Blomkamp made a stunning feature length debut by adapting one of his earlier film shorts, Alive in Joburg, to create District 9. Taking on the themes of apartheid and translating them into a sci-fi setting Blomkamp creates a wonderfully intellegent and brilliantly original movie. The film is also a feature debut for lead Sharlto Copley (soon to be seen as ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock in the A Team movie), who manages the difficult job of taking his character Wikus van der Merwe, who really shouldn’t be all that like-able, and make you feel sympathy for him.

Not got round to seeing District 9 yet? We have copies on DVD and on Blu-ray to give away! Click here to enter the competition!

1. Star Trek

Star Trek

Like a lot of Trek fans, when it was announced that they were planning on rebooting Star Trek, a shiver ran up my spine… You can’t recast Kirk! You can’t recast Spock!.. Well, turns out you can. And very successfully too! JJ Abrams managed the seemingly impossible task of updating Trek without annoying Trekkers/Trekkies, and still bringing non-Trek movie goers to the franchise. By the simple but ingenious idea of creating an alternate timeline, thereby leaving the original universe intact, every body’s happy, and JJ has a whole new Star Trek universe to do whatever he likes with.

Zachary Quinto turns in a performance of Spock that nearly ‘out Spocks’ Leonard Nimoy (who also appears as ‘Spock Prime’). Chris Pine manages to still convey a very Kirk-like attitude, but without trying to imitate the unique Mr. Shatner. A mention also needs to go to Karl Urban’s brilliant portrayal of Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy which at times felt like he was actually channeling DeForest Kelley.

JJ Abrams achieved the seemingly unachievable in reinvigorating the Star Trek franchise without alienating existing fans and stomping over it’s rich lineage, and for that, we say ‘Live Long and Prosper’.

Click here to read our full review of Star Trek, and here for our coverage of the Star Trek premiere.

Why is he climbing a mountain?… Well, i think i’ll let Mr. Shatner explain.

(I apologise in advance for this getting stuck in your head for the next 3hrs).