I am always willing to try new things so when I managed to get a beta key for Star Trek Online over the weekend I thought what the hell. It has been a year since my last MMO experience and it would be nice to sample one that wasn’t written with Windows 2000 in mind.

One of the problems of playing a modern MMO is that you need a modern computer to be able to see the shiny. Star Trek is no different in that it bitch slapped my humble laptop when running at the highest resolutions. This will make it less accessible and of course, Warcraft works with anything but that’s progress for you. The good news here is that even with the settings set to medium the game still looks great, apart from the environments which look very bland and samey. However the corridors etc look just like the ones from the show so I guess it can’t be blamed for sticking to the source material.  

Creating a character is pretty damn good. The thing features more customisable settings than a Tony Hawk game and you can create just about anything your imagination can think of. I immediately entered the swing of things by creating “Notborg” an inept borg spy working in the Federation. 

As is the custom these days there is a lengthy tutorial to show you the ropes. Set during a Borg invasion of a colony it does a great job of teaching you the basics and setting the scene. Although the chain of events is a little far fetched it is enjoyable and fun. It also features the soothing tones of Zachary Quinto guiding you through which shows a nice level of confidence cryptic have in their product if they are willing to shell out on big name actors. They also have Leonard Nimoy but I haven’t heard him yet.

I haven’t gone on many away missions (I love the space combat too much). So I haven’t done much combat but what I’ve seen is slow paced and methodical, very similar to KOTOR in style. One thing I disliked was having to keep pressing 1 to fire a phaser and there is no queuing system but I am sure that they will add a “auto shoot” at some point. The palm strike I had seemed a bit overpowered as it functioned as an interrupt which worked all the time, at least in the tutorial. You can also get bonuses from shooting from the back/sides which is a great idea. However, while I am sure it was put in to increase tactical combat I think it will just lead to people circle strafing the entire combat.  

You can team up with other players on away missions but if you are by yourself you get a bunch of red shirts beaming down with you to help you out. For goodness sake why hasn’t this been done before. Yes MMOs are meant to be played in groups but if someone wants to go it alone, let them! Speaking as someone who spent way too much time trying to get a group together in WoW this is superb and a huge selling point.

But Star Trek real ace in the hole is the space combat. You get given a ship as part of tutorial and the paint is barely dry when it gets attacked by the Borg. Fighting in space is extremely fiddly, it is almost like playing Tie Fighter with power management and positional awareness (you need to position your ship to both nurse your depleted shields while at the same time keep the enemy within range of your weapons) being of the upmost importance. Once you get the hang of it. the combat feels like classic trek with space battles looking very much like the ones in the show which has to be the ultimate compliment I can give. This is also a scenario where “raids” make sense. You have a big bad in Borg space? Put a fleet together and attack it. No more having twenty five people attack a base for no reason like in WoW.

Cryptic could have just made another WoW clone and cruised on the Star Trek name but they actually tried to make an MMO which emulates the look and feel of the show. Not only have they succeeded in that they also made it fun. Is it better than Warcraft? That is not a question I can answer but they are both different enough to coexist although I think that question will dominate discussion at launch.  

The only question I have is about content. The long term appeal of a MMO is the end game and new challenges. Cryptic have got the beginning down pat but time will tell if they can create enough end game content to keep people sticking around.