Hands On: Star Trek Online

Star Trek is as widely revered and closely protected by its fans as the Star Wars franchise, so when Cryptic Studios (the team behind City of Heroes) announced a new MMO based off the series many waited with abated breath to see if justice would be done to its untouchable source material.

As in all MMO's the first point of call in STO (Star Trek Online) is to create you character, and let us assure you it's a very comprehensive system. After selecting your race from a very lengthy list which contains species such as Human, Klingon, Bajoran, Ferengi, Andorian, Bolian, Cardassian, Tellarite and Vulcan, you pick your race traits which start to affect your stats right away.These traits either have effects in space, on ground or are just passive.

The character customisation system is incredibly in depth and has a Mass Effect feel to it, apart from being far more complex if you want it to be. As STO is still in Beta there are some bits and bobs to be fixed such as difficult menu navigation making selection difficult. Going on, you then customise your clothing right down to the sort of comm badge on your chest. It's obvious that Cryptic are aware that some Trekkies invest so heavily into fan fiction and role play that after selecting a name for yourself and your ship you can free type in a whole bio/back-story for your character.

As you emerge into the galaxy the starting section is fairly involving and helps you find your feet without having to resort to massacring a wild boar equivalent time and time again. The opening section tasks you with repelling Borg drones from a stricken ship or as one newcomer described "Silly Robots". Attacking is carried out through standard MMO modus operandi with mouse clicks selecting your target and the number keys being used to perform attacks. At present the targeting is frequently unresponsive, making it difficult to even attack in certain situations.

Carrying out actions such as killing enemies, helping allies and scanning objects you're rewarded with Skill Points and Starfleet Merits. These skill points can either be invested into yourself which can have positive effects on the ground or put them into advancements on your ship such as higher yield photon torpedoes or increased hull strength and manoeuvrability. Starfleet Merit's are used as the basic currency in STO and pay for everything ranging from ship customisation, installing better phaser banks or recruiting new crew members.  

In terms of ship customisation this looks to be quite robust too, with the option to mix and match different parts of the starships such as having a Centaur saucer, Mirandar nacelles, ShiKahr strut and Centaur pylons. You can then go further and skin each individual part of the ship with various patterns ranging from Gemini, Leo and Lacerta amongst others; you can even go as far as choosing the type of bridge on your ship.

On its highest settings STO can look pretty amazing with realistic shadows, beautiful blooms in space and all set upon a backdrop of twinkling stars. The starships look fantastic with real fan service being taken to ensure that they are as close to the fiction as possible. If on the other hand you've got a slightly less powerful computer STO will run equally well on lower specs but without all of the flourishes.

The audio work within STO is a mixed bag at present, the phasers, photon torpedoes, transporting and warping sounds are fantastic and Cryptic really got them down to a tee. Some are pretty horrendous such as the annoying chirp of the comms badge to alert you of a message. Likewise the voice acting is also a bit hit and miss; Zachary Quinto, the actor who played Spock in the recent Star Trek film voices the emergency medical hologram as well as the tutorial and does a great job but others are a bit ropey such as Admiral who sounds like a cheeky chappy rather than hardened war veteran.

Variety can be an issue in MMO's but in an attempt to try and bring a bit more diversity to the genre, Cryptic have come up with a decent variety of missions. These can range from conversing with miners on a backwater planet in order to find out their gripes and improve their standard of living, saving freighters from asteroid fields, delivering supplies to a stricken ship whilst stumbling upon an illegal mining operation with ensuing huge space battles, escorting Vulcan ambassadors to the monastery of P'Jem with a collection of artefacts that have been on display on Earth. The list goes on and on.

A main bugbear with the missions is it's very hard to actually know where you're going or where the person is you need to speak to. Navigation both on the ground and in space is definitely not intuitive and we found vast amounts of time were spent just actually trying to figure out what the hell to do rather than doing it.

The ever popular carrot on a stick gameplay mechanic of achievements has also made their way into STO but under the pseudonym of Accolades. These Accolades are linked into medals which track where you've explored and what you've brought back into the Federation. Cryptic have promised that there's going to be a huge amount of medals and accolades available for the most inquisitive explorers out there.

Space battles are something to behold in STO as golden phasers streak across space or the burst of your photon torpedoes leaving their battery then exploding into plumes of flame on your opponents' hull. As projectiles hit your shields they burst and fade beautifully. Whilst smaller battles can feel a little lacklustre, when you've got a whole fleet of friends with you, the action and tension can really ramp up.

For example on one occasion I went into battle but forgot that I'd swapped out my forward phaser banks and hadn't equipped anything else, leaving only my aft phaser banks functioning. A tense half hour battle then ensued with my shields failing left, right and centre as I constantly had to manoeuvre my ship behind enemies to fire off photon torpedoes then take evasive action and turn quickly in order to follow up with the aft phasers. As I constantly re-routed power to various shields I could almost hear Scotty shouting "I've giv'n her all she's got captain, an' I cannae give her no more!", as time went on shields failed and the hull started to come apart but then in the nick of time four Federation ships warped in and proceeded to fend off the attackers.

Its times like these in STO where it just comes together and you feel like you're playing something that could become something very special indeed.