It is known that Star Trek Online feels like two games
Star Trek Online is a free-to-play MMORPG set in the year 2409. Players can become young wide-eyed Lieutenants in the Federation or Klingons exploring the unknown. Based off the Star Trek Franchise it’s somewhat comparable to Battlestar Galactica Online, Dark Orbit, and Pirates of the Burning Sea in terms of gameplay. Players complete various missions on ground or in space. Each captain can control their own spacecraft and fight others in an intergalactic faction war. Participate in hand to hand combat or fire phasers at foes while exploring new planets. Choose between three distinct positions and slowly expand your crew. Customize your ship with an assortment of weapons and gadgets for strategized attacks. Work your way up the ranks to admiral and run one of the best U.S.S. Starships ever to enter the solar system.
Star Trek, the co-op third-person shooter inspired by JJ Abrams’ movie reboot, will bridge the story between the 2009 film and Abrams’ upcoming 2013 sequel according to publisher Namco Bandai. As reported by What Culture, the game, which stars Kirk and Spock, and is in development at Digital Extremes and is set for release in the first quarter of 2013, with Star Trek movie scriptwriters/producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman collaborating on the story. The Tricorder is also noted as a significant piece of in-game equipment, while Spock will be able to control enemies with a ‘combat mind meld’ according to the report. The officers, for those who haven't been following the game, are one of the main ways you customize your playstyle. Basically, you can fill your ship with specialized staff who can provide you with unique abilities while in space, and an extra party member with a couple of tricks on the ground. Officers don't appear in ground-based PvP, though, making any improvements to their ground abilities wasteful, and making their mere existence for Klingons literally half-redundant.
This overhaul may come as a surprise who remember Star Trek Online as the sad and rather barren MMO that launched in 2010 with a surfeit of bugs and almost no endgame to speak of; but since then, Cryptic has been working quietly behind the scenes to make their trek through the stars one worth taking. The past five years have brought with them a large number of high-quality missions, many more ships, a new faction, and guest appearances by the likes of Michael Dorn (Worf), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar, Sela). Within the past year, they've released the Delta Rising expansion, which opens Star Trek Voyager's Delta Quadrant while raising the level cap for the first time since launch. Star Trek Online feels like two games. There's the space portion, which is about 60-80% of the game, and there's the ground portion. While they don't vary in terms of the basic control scheme, they have a completely different feel and pacing, and, unfortunately, don't mesh well. At first, this is a positive, and makes for pretty engaging questlines, but in a relatively short time (for an MMO) I felt myself becoming agitated.
While all of those things sound great and succeed on some levels, the overall feeling that one is left with is that, while amazingly cool to consider, none of the three varieties of combat are done particularly well. They’re not horrid, just none are as good as they could have been if attention were given to one at a time to perfect it as much as possible before moving on to the next. I know and I get it: How could you build a Star Trek MMO without having all three combat components in place from the get go? Honestly, I have no answer to that other than to say that, no matter what, combat and game play is a big letdown given the near perfection of the ambiance of the game.
It isn't bugs that make Star Trek Online feel unfinished, however. It's the inherent shallowness. It's light, airy, and simple--attributes that might attract you at first but only let you down when you find that the game is more boring than bold. Some of the flaws will improve in time; MMOGs are, by their very nature, evolving creatures. Other flaws--the poor ground combat and oddly disconnected nature of the universe--are threaded into the core design and less likely to see improvement. For now, be wary of Star Trek Online. The prospect of epic space combat may seem tempting, but a smattering of entertaining battles are merely oases amongst the monotony. Star Trek Online is a shell, lacking the substance and the style that the franchise so rightfully deserves.
