GamesRelay

Name: Star Trek Online

Whenever Sci-Fi is brought up, two franchises are always quick in the association: Star Trek and Star Wars. In an uncharacteristic shift in policy, we're not here to discuss the latter, as the long-anticipated Star Trek Online has now abandoned the buggy beta pastures of its long development and is now a complete, full release. Does this MMO boldly go where none have gone before, or is it the assimilation of the technological distinctiveness of its peers?

The setting is 2409. At the dawn of the 25th Century, the Alpha Quadrant has seen better solar days. The Klingons have begun a policy of subjugation, overcoming the weakened Romulan Empire and the mysterious Gorn, they have now set their ridge-impaired eyes on the United Federation of Planets. Diplomacy has long been useless, war has come, and you are to captain a Starfleet vessel, and meet them on the vacuous battlefields of space. Of course, there's more to it, with a menacing threat from a shapeshifting species called the Undine, which will look strangely familiar to those well-ensconced in Star Trek canon, attempting to usurp the governments of the mightiest powers in the galaxy. Warm up those impulse engines – there's aliens to shoot.

At first, you only have the option of creating a Federation character. The options cover a wide and unusual mix of Federation races, from obvious standbys like Humans and Vulcans, to odd choices such as Saurians and Benzites. Each race has one or two required traits, with the rest being relayed to the player's choice to make a total of four. Such traits can increase your melee strength, improve the efficiency of your vessel, or increase your maximum health amongst multiple other options. There's also a Create a Species option, where the physical appearance and all four traits are entirely up to your own decision. While the size and shape of your alien is adjustable in the same way as the others, by enlarging, shrinking, or moving things around with the sliders, the more subtler details are relegated to the tattoos and scars that all the other races have the option to use, as well as being a pick-and-mix of the features of the other races. In the end, whatever creature you make will look less like their own species, and more like a genetic mish-mash of the ones already available. It seems as though Cryptic has plans to release more races in the future, as they have already released two extra species for purchase – the Ferengi and the Federation Klingon. Presumably, there's more to come in other updates going forward. After choosing your species, you get to name your character and vessel, as well as include biographical information if you want to round out your identity, but it's entirely optional.

The tutorial does an admirable job in teaching you all of the game systems, and only wears out its welcome in the conclusion of it, as it begins to throw bibles of explanative text at you. Before this, everything is taught to you practically, giving you hordes of Borg and damaged vessels to test your teaching out. In fact, it actually turns out to be quite entertaining in itself, which is very strange when you consider how laborious training sequences many other games put you through. It can last a bit longer than you may like, taking about an hour to complete and only then opening the Sector Map for you to explore at your leisure. You'll be spending the vast majority of your time in your ship. Warping to locations would in actuality (and that's a very liberal use of the term) take days, instead it now take minutes. The shameful side of this is that it actually take minutes of non-interactive travelling to get anywhere. If you choose the system you wish to enter on the map, you can be auto-piloted there, giving you moments that can only be filled by managing your inventory, equipment, skills, or laughing at the amusing names of fellow players and their ships. Since the Sector Space areas are pretty large, and there are multiple sectors to explore, you spend an awful lot of time staring at your screen, waiting. They should have either made the movement speed faster in these areas, or even given you something to keep you mildly occupied during your flights. There is a built-in music player that you can slip your own MP3s into, and this can be used to stem the tedium. Of course, if you're playing with a friend, the time could quickly be passed by conversation.

What really makes the space travel a pain, however, is the necessity to keep returning to the Earth Spacedock. This area acts as a hub for your character progression, containing all the merchants, skill trainers and ship customisation terminals that you need to become an even more powerful force. The problem that makes itself quite immediate is the limited inventory space. You need to sell your excess items and equipment to merchants for "energy chips" to invest in better parts. The Federation may operate just fine without currency, but it seems an MMO cannot. The only way of obtaining these energy chips is through the selling of items, as completing missions doesn't reward you with any. Thankfully, you may not need to return to the Earth Spacedock for this, as travelling merchants are commonplace wherever you go, and are happy to take those old impulse engines off your hands.