STO: To boldly go where every Trek game has gone before. My toilet.
To date I can recall only one Trek game that was even remotely close to playable, I mean enjoyable. Bridge Commander. It was pretty clear that the developers of BC were fans of the franchise, it was a game that stayed faithful to the series while at the same time providing the familiar Star Trek feel we all knew and loved. It actually felt like you were on the show at times. Even the Star Trek spin on space combat that so many of us before BC wished we could experience ourselves was here in all it's glory.
Since then just about every developer out there has taken a shot at the franchise in hopes to turn it into something. Even Bethesda took a crack at it, they failed of course...they are Bethesda. There were even talks that Square was in negotiations to produce a Star Trek game. With each game the crap kept piling up and up until finally the series just up and died. No more games, no new series, no movies, no nothing...dead.
Finally after some time it's announced that a Star Trek MMO is in the works. Wtf? Serious? You couldn't even get single player right. Not so surprisingly the original company developing it up and died , but before passing on they handed the torch to Cryptic Studios. Developers of the wildly unimpressive Champions Online.
Oh wonderful, here we go again.
I'm guessing Paramount was pretty desperate, why else would you hand your biggest franchise over to a small and inexperienced game studio? After all, Cryptic is only a few steps away from being a full blown indie racket. At any rate I don't know, but I'm guessing that Champions was so terrible that Paramount figured they probably had what it took to develop a new Trek game.
Despite the fact that Cryptic had absolutely no business making a Star Trek game in the first place, early screen shots and trailer videos looked extremely promising. The official site for the game did even more to whet fans appetites. They were talking crazy, saying things like how they were going to stay faithful to the series, how it wasn't all going to be pew! pewz! and explosions. That you would be able to rise up in the ranks, command your crew, go on away missions, go inside your ship and explore the galaxy. So yeah, it was enough to give fans a collective boner.
Could it be? Did we somehow stumble onto a developer that had *gasp* actually watched the show?
Well, no. We did not.
Star Trek Online is finally here, firmly unimpressive, rushed, sloppy and nearly unplayable.
Missions are nothing but running and gunning. Combat is the central key gameplay element and it's everywhere you go. Hear that sound? That's the sound of the Star Trek fan base collectively vomiting in unison. Why developers constantly insist on shoving combat down our throats is beyond me. This isn't Star "Wars", it's Star "Trek". Google is your friend.
Despite combat playing such a heavy role I am pleased to say that Cryptic nailed it. Starships are slow and lumbering beasts that take forever to turn and even longer to take down. Sound boring? It really isn't, battles are long and engaging and strategy has never been this well implemented in a ST game before. For a few minutes during an early scene where you and about 20 other people have to defend a starbase from waves of enemy ships I truly felt immersed in the ST universe. Some battles are on an absolutely massive scale, it can get pretty intense and it's quite a sight to behold.
Sadly, it all comes apart everywhere else. As I said combat is everywhere so even the fun battles get old real quick.
The game itself is actually surprisingly small, which...makes no sense considering it takes place in OUTER !@#$%^& SPACE! There's only a handful of places to go in the game and what's worse, there's no exploration to be found anywhere, it's just a bad wow clone set in space, there's nothing to see or do outside of the standard "go here and kill this many peeps" quests. What the hell?
The ability to actually go inside your ship is also oddly missing. It's been speculated that it will be added at some point down the road but "don't get your hopes up" uhh...yeah, that's not what we were told?
I don't see how you can even have a ST game where you can't explore your own ship. It doesn't work, you know why? YOUR SHIP IS STAR TREK! The show is ABOUT your crew, your teammates, their lives, your life and personal interactions and relationships with the people around you. Did Cryptic fall asleep in front of the TV or something? How can you **** something like that up?
It's funny, I read a developer interview once for Mass Effect. They said they took a bit of inspiration from Trek while designing the personal and relationship aspect of that game. How's that for irony? Also, how could a game with no history and no back story at all get that part right while Cryptic has a nearly 50 year old franchise to fall back on? It's inconceivable to me how stupid a developer would have to be to just forget to include what made the franchise a franchise in the first place.
"Yeah but it's an mmo and that stuff doesn't work".
Yeah it does, and if you can't make it work in Star Trek game then get the hell out of the way and let someone else take a swing at it. There's always room for story, even in an online game...there was plenty of room for a lot of stuff here.
Well, you can't miss what you never had. And a half decent Star Trek game is definitely one of them. Back to the waiting game for the Star Trek fans. Maybe one day we'll find an at least somewhat competent developer.