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Best call it a shakedown cruise

In the interests of full disclosure, I'll tell you lot right now: I'm actually intoStar Trek Online, and have been for the half-dozen-plus years of its life so far. By Steam's count I've logged nearly 3 thousand hours in the Cryptic-adult free-to-play MMO, and that'southward non even counting the many hours I spent with the game earlier it actually debuted on Steam. I own a "lifetime" subscription to information technology, and have spent more time withStar Trek Online than any other single title. I doubt any stance I take on it could ever be considered truly unbiased, after all this.

But that was all on PC, though. The game I've given and so much fourth dimension to has merely recently debuted on PS4 and Xbox One, and I've had the take chances to give it yet more time, though now in pretty much the same situation as any new player, and to take stock of how this erstwhile bird flies through fresh eyes.

Star Trek Online (PC, PS4 [reviewed], Xbox One)
Developer: Cryptic Studios
Publisher: Perfect Earth Entertainment
Released: February two, 2010 (PC), September 5, 2016 (PS4/Xbox 1)
MSRP: Costless-to-play

If goose egg else, information technology'd be difficult to faultStar Trek Online for lack of content. What was a relative baste feed for players in the early years is now a lengthy progression consisting of dozensof bespoke, story-driven "episodes" arranged into multiple intertwining plotlines. Each of the iii available factions also gets a smaller selection of unique missions covering the first few legs of the leveling process.

For example, Federation players beginning out as a fresh Starfleet cadet, awarded control of their outset starship (a chunkyMiranda-form vessel plucked wholesale from The Wrath of Khan) thanks to a series of unfortunate circumstances — and a clever reenactment of a scene fromThe Undiscovered Country. Klingon players, meanwhile, rising to their position in the traditional Klingon fashion, murdering their commanding officer in a duel of laurels. Romulan players begin in more typical RPG surround, living out a bucolic existence every bit colonists and eventually joining upward with the game-original Romulan Commonwealth, a bald-faced "these are thegoodones" spinoff of the otherwise sinister Romulan Star Empire.

The game bends over backward to contain primal points and callbacks from decades ofStar Trek canon, both established and unofficial, and there's nary a moment that doesn't have some kind of canny reference to an old episode tucked in somewhere. It also mines the catechism for even the almost obscure material to populate its stories, proffering answers to questions that none merely the almost hardcore nerds would bother to ask, similar whatreally happened to the McGuffin Captain Picard destroyed during his beach holiday, who the weird subspace aliens that kidnapped Riker and Worf in their sleep are, the fate of the hyper-evolved dinosaurs that the crew ofVoyager met in a thinly-veiled parable about the creationist contend, and how all ofthat ties in toEnterprise'south weird "Temporal Common cold War."

Perhaps more concerning than the game's fan-fiction leanings is its penchant for violence, though. Fans raised on the placid utopianism ofStar Trek: The Next Generation may defection at the heavily combat-axial nature of the mission design, every bit even relatively benign diplomatic assignments tin can rack up a bodycount.Star Trek Online'due south vision of the 25th century is shaped in the mold ofDeep Space Ix and the darker episodes ofVoyager, where galactic peace is more fragile, andrealpolitik more than nowadays. The Federation starts the game at war with a resurgent Klingon Empire, while the Romulans reel from the destruction of their home planet in the issue that set upward the J.J. Abrams-led reboot (at present chosen the "Kelvin Timeline"). Threats both new and old also pop up to anchor various story arcs, including the Borg, Species 8472 (now called the "Undine"), and more than.

All of this can be explored past players without charge (and without PlayStation Plus, if done on the PS4 version), guaranteeing roughly xxx to 40 hours of fairly engaging solo play for anyone with a reasonably reliable internet connexion. And there's more to exist had for people willing to make characters of unlike factions since their respective unique storylines have their ain tone and flavor outside of the differences in ship selection and play style. Without spoiling the proceedings, let's only say that players who've e'er wanted toinvade Klingon hell to impale Klingon Satan might desire to curlicue with the ridge-heads, for at to the lowest degree a few hours.

Of grade, enjoying all of this deliciousTrek fan service is contingent on existence able to finer appoint withStar Trek Online's gameplay. The mission design makes some honest attempts to justify and fifty-fifty alleviate the violent focus of the mechanics, but as mentioned before, the game just isn't built to do much with a more diplomatic path, the same way the average point-and-click adventure title isn't really "congenital for" blistering action scenes. So once again, there's no other Expedition-themed game on the market that features about of the canonical races, costumes, and a goodly corporeality of original content to boot, not to mention 1 that allows players to create a squad of "Bridge Officers" to back-trail them on Away missions, using an obscenely detailed graphic symbol creator.

That's all dressing on acme of a combat system that lives up to the missions' many battles. Ground based combat is as well nowadays, simply is more of a chaotic scrum than annihilation genuinely refined, though that can be fun, if taken on its own terms. Expectations of the systems should besides be managed accordingly. Subsequently, all, information technology's a organization initially built for mouse-and-keyboard control on a PC in 2010, rather than a truly gimmicky piece of design or platform-adjusted philosophy.For what it's worth, Cryptic has done an admirable job constructing a bespoke "controller-native" interface forStar Expedition Online. Taking advantage of radial menus and a set ofDragon Historic period-like conditional variables for using powers automatically, the game translates STO's famously "clicky" style, prioritizing directly decision-making ships and selecting targets over the more remote piloting washed on PC.

Being able to movement a ship around using the left stick and focus on targets with the right, while using the triggers to handle weapons, feels obviously more than enjoyable than doing the aforementioned with a keyboard, even if it'due south technically less "efficient." Further, the difference betwixt diverse send types is more apparent when trying to command them via a gamepad. Lumbering cruisers really experience weighty while nimble escorts nada and zoom about. The demand to really point the camera at a target in order to shoot it on the default settings too makes the combat experience more present and personal, even in infinite.

Every bit for higher-level play, specially in PVP, this more roundabout approach to control imposes a more than stately stride to the infinite combat, where timing the activation of abilities and keeping a high "uptime" on beneficial effects can make a major divergence in obtaining advantage. Knowledge of this really gave me the upper hand in matches confronting opponents who were of a college level and had presumably better gear.

If there'south one upside to the wayStar Trek Online's console versions aren't assuasive veteran PC players to take anything beyond the platforms, it'due south that the level playing field has resulted in the nuance of the space combat being able to shine through more conspicuously. Six years of "power pitter-patter" and premium items on PC have invariably tilted the "meta" in favor of players with the most time to grind out the nigh min-maxed build possible, thoroughly annihilating players without similar levels of time to spend optimizing their builds. It remains to be seen how this will bear upon the console versions in the long-term, though, only rediscovering PVP play here prompts me to promise Ambiguous tin can find a fashion to keep the playing field more level for more people this time around.

The interface also works well in distilling the PC version's HUD into something that works for gamepads, though it never feels quite equally smooth or "snappy" as a truly console-native game. The in-game text is besides nonetheless too small, and barely readable by players sitting farther from their TVs. Information technology's not as convenient every bit the PC version's, but information technology works improve than many other PC-to-console port jobs I've played, and serves as a good base for further refinement. One oddity, though, is the absenteeism of constructive voice chat. Text chat options in the game are robust, but very, very tedious, unless players opt to claw up a keyboard, or perhaps use the PlayStation mobile app as a course of text entry.

While there's plenty of content available for prospective captains, I can't help but run across Star Trek Online on panel equally in something approximating beta country at the moment. This is because a few fundamental components of the game's economy and progression have not yet crossed the gap. Things like player-endemic Fleet Starbases, gear crafting, the Duty Officer and Admiralty systems, and some other features are all the same to be added to the alive version of the console edition. These omissions are already on the fashion, according to Cryptic, but their current absenteeism is significant for long-term players, every bit these systems agree access to near of the game'south all-time gear, ships, and economic avenues, enabling players to acquire even the expensive premium ships by spending time rather than money.

I've mentioned things that are missing from the console versions that are present on the PC, simply if there'south one thing I wish hadn't made it over, information technology's the bugs. As far as technical states go, Star Trek Online was always more like the Galactica than the Enterprise, robust-simply-creaky rather than smooth-running, and it's disappointing to meet the jank brand its style over to tarnish the game in the optics of impressionable immature console users. I guess in that location's only and then much 1 can expect of a port, only I would've hoped some of the rough edges would be smoothed over for this edition.

So there'due south money. Similar its PC version,Star Trek Online on panel is a free-to-play game, supported by microtransactions. All of the missions, story content, activities, and core progress are all playable gratis. Thankfully, they're likewise balanced in favor of even the cheapest misers outfitted in basic drops and mission rewards. Just the good stuff — the fancy ships, the testify-authentic costumes, and more options for character and power setups — are locked behind a considerable paywall. A high-level "Tier half-dozen" ship tin cost upward to $30 worth of the game'due south premium "Zen" currency, and the rarest ships are hidden in random-driblet lockboxes, opened with keys that cost just past a dollar each. If you're the type of person to see whatever sort of budgetary arrangement equally a betrayal of Federation values, then Star Trek Online is a traitor of the highest society.

The bright side of this is that it's all theoretically available without a direct purchase. Well-nigh everything obtainable from the lockboxes can be sold on the Auction Business firm for in-game "Energy Credits." Farther, players can buy Zen and sell that on a special exchange for another in-game currency, "Dilithium." Dilithium can exist earned in-game through quest completion, and is used in gear crafting and upgrading, buying unique set items from the game's reputation system, and for investing in Fleet Starbases. As with MMOs like EVE and even World of Warcraft, players that are skilled at playing the markets or farming in-game resource can make enough to pay for ships and items that would otherwise be acquired with real-globe cash.

Of course, that all takes time, and with inflation, won't be a very realistic option for all but the most dedicated grinders. Fortunately, none of that is strictly required to meet all the game has to offer, and the decision to pay into Star Expedition Online is actually simply i that will be made by players who've already decided to commit heavily to the game, or for super-fans of a particular ship. My personal advice is non to pay for anything until one's reached the maximum level, at which point the story missions should be over with and the decision to actually spring into Star Expedition Online is fabricated.

In that location'due south a lot to like about Star Expedition Online, fifty-fifty for players who aren't hardcore Star Trek fans or crazy people like me, but it does ask to be put up with to a certain extent. As for the console versions, information technology's also not all there yet, almost literally. At the same time, information technology's hard to proper name a more than overtly generous free-to-play MMO on the current market, and information technology's worth a shot, for both Trek devotees and the simply Warp-curious.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided past the publisher.]}

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Source: https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-star-trek-online/

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