Good day.
In order to be definitive, a game must embody all aspects of a property, and Star Trek Online
does just that.
In short, Star Trek Online is the single greatest Star Trek game ever made, and I don't use
that label lightly.
I have played many of the legendary Star Trek games, such as Starfleet Command 2 and 3,
and Armada.
This isn't my first foray into the alpha quadrant.
Now Star Trek Online is also notable for the fact that it is entirely free.
You can get access to the entirety of the game for zero dollars and even less cents.
There are a few things that do cost real money, though, but they are both cosmetic and optional.
The gameplay is divided between both space and ground combat, with space being the lion's
share of the game.
Which makes sense, since it's called Star Trek, not Old Republic.
In space, the interface and combat is a mix of Star Trek: Starfleet Command complexity
with the 3d movement of Star Trek Legacy.
On the ground, you just have a basic third person shooter interface.
One unique thing, though, is the fact that you get access to a party of five rather than
four, three, or just one.
One really cool thing is the fact that you can go to the bridge of your starships and
walk around in them.
And these environments are very detailed, and it actually makes you feel like you're
on a real starship.
the basic gameplay for the game is as you would expect: Complete quests and kill enemies
to get XP and to level up.
But the loot system does not actually include any form of currency.
Rather, when you complete a quest, you just get items and XP.
The currency, and the economy in general, will be discussed later.
Now there are three factions to choose from: The Federation, the Klingons, and, as of the
latest expansion, the Romulans.
Each faction has multiple races to choose from, but it doesn't really matter what race
you choose, since none of the NPC's will actually mention it.
In fact, when I was on Vulcan, playing as a Vulcan, no one noticed and I was called
emotional.
Graphically, the game is very nice looking, with the ships looking better than they have
ever been before, and your custom names actually show up on the hull.
And this is where the MMO aspect of the game makes the game even better than if it were
just single player.
You see, when you warp to space dock there is just a HUGE amount of ships there, and
it is all very awe inspirational.
The third person segments actually look pretty decent as well, though they can be graphically
lacking at times, and there are a few graphical glitches during these segments.
The sound for the game is also really quite good with all the sounds being as one would
expect them to be from the show, however, the voice acting is pretty bad.
Thankfully, it's not actually a big deal since there is very little voice acting in the game
itself.
And now, let's get to the economy.
There are four resources that one can acquire: There are energy credits, and these are gained
by selling unneeded equipment and can be used to buy basic items and ONE chip from the shipyard.
And then you have the most important resource of the game: The Dilithium.
This is used to buy upgrades for your ship and new ships in general.
Getting this resource is the most grind intensive part of the game, as you can only get small
amounts of it at a time.
Then you have Zen, and this is real money.
This can be used to buy optional ships and cosmetic upgrades.
Lastly, there is Gold-Pressed Latinum, and that is used for literally gag items.
Moving on, we have the single greatest goal of the game: The acquisition of ships.
Now you don't really need to buy ships, but you know you want to.
You know you can't resist the allure of the ships.
when you first start the game and you have no idea how to get Dilithium, you see the
Runabout - also known as the FUNABOUT!
- for only a few thousand energy credits.
And then you scrimp and save until finally the day comes and you can buy what is really
just a cool but useless ship.
Now each time you earn a new rank, you are given a ship for free.
That's how I got this thing right here.
You can of course grind a lot and then get other ships, but for me, I like to just have
one ship that I sink all my upgrades into.
Lastly, we have the missions.
Now for me, I find every other MMO to be rather boring.
Why?
Because you complete the same missions over and over again, and grind, and grind, and
grind some more.
But here, there is always something different to do.
There are numerous types of missions out there, and they all vary from one another.
Even the grind quests, of which there are only a few, at least vary it up now and again.
And now all of what you do in the game is kill things.
Sometimes, you can go into new systems and just scan for things and then move on.
Now the actual multiplayer aspect of some missions is not contrived, and it actually
fits into the universe quite well, and they are never forced upon you.
And best of all, there's actually a great deal of incentive to do some of these multiplayer
missions, as some will give you Dilithium and other rare resources.
The game world itself never gets dull, and traveling to other planets in order to complete
missions never gets annoying.
In order to travel to other planets you have to go to Sector space, and DAMN does it look
good, and the travel times are manageable, and you can't get attacked while traveling!
Which goes a long way towards keeping the dullness down.
Also, sometimes one must go to the headquarters building, and you can fast travel to it at
pretty much any location at any time.
Star Trek Online, of course, is not without its share of flaws.
In fact, I faced a rather annoying bug from the very first screen, with the game outright
failing character creation, with the only workaround being entering a default name.
The game also doesn't like you to rename things at certain times.
When I got my Runabout, I tried to rename it, and it kept saying there was some sort
of white space error, and finally, after trying it about eight thousand times, it finally
accepted the name, so apparently Star Trek Online is not good with names.
But it is very good with faces.
The game can crash now and again, but it actually is fairly rare.
Ultimately though, Star Trek Online is an absolutely amazing game.
It is by far my favorite Star Trek game, and one of my favorite games in general of all
time, and I cannot recommend it enough.
And so, this is Captain Jon, and I'm setting a course for the third star from the right.