Star Trek Online Review (PC Online)

The Star Trek universe recently expanded with a new film that reset the original story and gives a whole new generation a chance to appreciate it. Now it’s going another place where people have gone before and exploring strange somewhat familiar places, seeking out...well, fun we hope.

But is it really? There are a lot of things I think are missing from the game. For example when you start, you can only be a member of Starfleet. Plus, you don’t even go through any type of training. I guess they thought that actually going to Starfleet Academy would have been boring and so you are, instead, thrust straight into the game’s story all willy nilly.

Borg are attacking, you’re just a cadet but somehow all the officers on the ship are targeted by the Borg and suddenly you’re in charge (how’s that for an extremely forced storyline?). On top of that, the Klingons are actively invading Federation space, oh and the Romulans, they’ve got all sorts of problems after their planets were destroyed. But still, they want to fight the Federation as well. It’s amazing that the Federation lasts as long as it does isn’t it? I hear the Dominion might be coming as well...one can hope.

Now on to the game. It’s Sunday and I was going to hop in and do some missions to get some material for the review and, the servers are down. Reading through the forums one finds that they have problems with load balancing at times, logins and now it seems server stability. Not exactly the type of launch we’ve come to expect from Cryptic. This was two weeks prior to publishing and things seem more stable.

Problems abound in the game as enemy ships can shoot through asteroids and even through other enemy ships (Borg spheres shooting through Borg Cubes). Unfortunately, you cannot also do that. It doesn’t happen all the time, maybe just with smaller asteroids. But it does happen a lot. Then again, I took on six enemies with my basic Bird of Prey and blasted them all to oblivion. So obviously I either have a perfectly set up ship, or there are some game balancing issues. They are also facing ’tens of thousands’ of bug reports at present and are simply swamped. So, many issues will be a long time in the fixing. But with a massive game and massive amounts of players, bugs are certainly to be expected. Of course, downtime on a weekend, that’s just inexcusable.

The graphics are nice, but they don’t compare to that other massive online space game and seem almost shoddy in comparison. You have a fantastic range of customization for your character and ship. I made my own alien for Starfleet and then a Borg-liberated Klingon. You can give certain body features more prominence than others. I made my Melfica (that’s the alien race I made) have longer than average arms and longer than average fingers. I based the idea on the standard ’gray’ aliens and then mixed in some Peter Lorre. So he’s sort of creepy looking to say the least. The Klingon I based on two ideas power and fear. So she’s about 2.2 meters tall (7.2 Feet) and big in a very physically fit way. Since she survived assimilation and liberation she’s got the infected looking skin and still sports a Borg implant.

The sounds are, well, Star Trek. All of the sounds are authentic from the phasers and photon torpedoes down to the transporter and computer voice. It’s all there exactly as it should be. I just wish they had Robert Picardo as an emergency medical hologram. That would have been perfect.


The missions in the game are limited. It’s either go attack and destroy enemies or go find out something, then attack and destroy enemies. They do a good job of mixing things up so you sometimes have away missions to play through (yep, attack and destroy enemies) in between a lot of space battles. It’s still grinding, but it doesn’t feel like it because there’s such a wide range of ways to do it. They even had a mission that was purely a fact-finding expedition where you go and settle a dispute with some miners. But they could have made that far more interesting because the feeling was, as one player said, "I went all the way to that system just to answer six questions?" My reply was "It’s called diplomacy," however, there could have been something more. There are also other missions where you just have to go activate some devices and they feel like they’re just there as filler.

There are even specific areas set aside just for PvP in the Neutral Zone where Klingons and Federation can mix it up in a variety of online PvP modes including resource grabbing, deathmatch, etc. As a Klingon you are encouraged to engage the Federation at any chance and even to engage in combat with other houses just as a matter of polite society, for Klingons anyway. Sometimes though, you’ll run into what you think is a PvP level which will end up just being a forced multiplayer co-op environment. There are many would-be PvP levels that are really just this sort of team up against a fleet of NPCs. Of course, as with many MMOs that means you’ll be on a team of players that don’t know what teamwork is. Though I have been surprised by how much teamwork actually does show up here.

Crafting in the game just plain sucks. The only way to do it is to run around the galaxy gathering up anomalous data readings. Then you take those and a specific item and trade them in for an upgraded one. It’s all very cut and dry and I was extremely disappointed to find out that there’s no experimentation, no creation of unique items and frankly, nothing interesting at all in it. You have to run a science mission which then gives you access to someone who upgrades Mark II items. After a certain amount of exchange with that player you can then move up to Mark III items with someone else, etc, etc. Yawn! It’s not a crafting system at all in fact. If this is their answer to a non-violent scientific side to the game, it’s an almost complete failure on their part.

The space battles can be epic, in a very proper use of that word. Fleet actions take you and up to twenty other ships and throw you into a massive space battle that could last up to an hour depending on how quickly the fleet dispatches the enemies and achieves the goals that are set forth. These are the times when the game really shines because it’s non-stop action and while you’re technically ’grinding,’ it’s not at all like standard grinding. However, as with many MMOs, no matter what you do in these missions, the game’s story does not change at all. If you beat back the Gorn or take out a massive Klingon force trying to slip in and steal a sector from the Federation, they’ll still be there doing it later. The story doesn’t really progress and there’s no actual change in who has control of what sector. The maps and borders are stationary and don’t look like they will ever change.

As far as I’m concerned, the major flaw in the game comes in your lack of gameplay options and the horrible crafting system. You are either a Starfleet Officer or a Klingon Defense Fleet Officer (for now). There is no being a Ferengi and living a life dedicated to the acquisition of wealth. There is no being a bar owner on a Starship or Starbase. There’s no being a bounty hunter, a crazy hitchhiking alien or anything else. It’s just this, or that and that’s all you get. But it’s an MMO and if we know one thing about MMOs it’s that they evolve over time and Cryptic is actively working to do that. MMOs expand and new features are added and hopefully, these are high on the list, after they squash tens of thousands of bugs. So for now, there is no Q or Continuum, there is no visiting the home of the Prophets in the Bajoran Wormole. Just for now, we hope.

http://www.gamersdailynews.com/articlenav-2362-page-2.html

Star Trek The Motion Picture Artist Robert McCall Dies at Age 90

According to TrekMovie.com, artist Robert McCall passed away on Friday of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 90.

McCall worked for NASA and also did paintings for Hollywood, including the famous advertising posters for 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Black Hole, Tora! Tora! Tora! as well as work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture

http://trekweb.com/articles/2010/02/28/Star-Trek-The-Motion-Picture-Artist-Robert-McCall-Dies-at-Age-of-90.shtml

Star Trek XI Young Adult Books Debut This Autumn

Two new Star Trek XI tie-in books aimed at young adults are scheduled for release on November 16, 2010.

The trade paperback-sized books, to cost $7.99, are the initial offerings in what promises to be a series of books, set in Starfleet Academy.

As reported by TrekMovie, One of the authors of the books has been named, Rudy Josephs, who wrote The Sacred Chalice (a mirror Picard and Troi story) for Shards and Shadows which was released last January. His Starfleet Academy book is available for pre-order at Amazon.

Both stories are set during the time frame of Star Trek XI, unlike the four recently postponed books written by Christopher L. Bennett, Greg Cox, Alan Dean Foster and David Mack, which were set after the events of Star Trek XI.

Star Trek XI tie-in books for adults may be in the future, but no details have been worked out yet.

http://www.trektoday.com/content/2010/03/star-trek-xi-young-adult-books-debut-this-autumn/

More Star Trek Games On The Way

In a recent interview with Trekmovie.com, CBS Products vice president Van Citters said that new Star Trek games are in the works. He doesn't specify any platforms or genres, and there's no indication that a game is currently in development. However, he acknowledged the need for more traditional games outside the current MMOPRG, Star Trek Online, and the franchise's need to expand the gaming space in the long-term.

"There are definitely things in the works," he said. "There is a great deal of interest in developing new games for Star Trek and we will definitely have more to say about it in the future. I am very excited about what the future is going to hold for Star Trek gaming as a whole."

Star Trek Online is the first release since the launch of the $10 Star Trek DAC in 2009. Trekmovie pointed out that the gaming scene has been barren for some time, with the last handful of (lackluster) Trek games released by Bethesda from 2006-2007. The site also states that there are currently no game licensees.

For a franchise that ruled the 1980s and 1990s, the Star Trek mammoth has been somewhat stagnant since the turn of the century. The Voyager crew finally came home, wrapping up a 7-year trek that was only seen on UPN stations, the last film featuring the Next Generation crew-- Nemesis-- didn't fair well in the box office, and the fifth Star Trek TV series-- Enterprise-- struggled to accomplish four seasons.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Star-Trek-Pc-Game-MMORPG,9781.html

Andrew Koenig's Parents Return Home to L.A.

Still coming to grips with their son Andrew Koenig’s suicide, Walter and Judy Koenig returned home to Los Angeles on Tuesday to pick up the pieces of their lives. RadarOnline.com has the photos from their somber return.

Walter (best known as Mr. Chekov in the Star Trek series) and Judy had originally flown to Vancouver to search for their son and held a tear-filled press conference on February 26 mere hours after the Growing Pains

star’s body was found in the city’s Stanley Park.

Andrew Koenig Committed Suicide

"The only other thing I want to say is, we've already said what a great guy he was, what a great human being. He was obviously in a lot of pain,” Walter said at the press conference. "If you're one of these people who feel like you can't handle it anymore, there are people out there who really care. You might not think so and ultimately it might not be enough, but there are people out there who really, really care.”

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/03/andrew-koenigs-parents-return-home-la

Shatner set for Banff TV festival honour

William Shatner, the Canadian acting veteran whose career has spanned Stratford to Star Trek, is to be honoured for his career at the upcoming Banff World Television Festival.

The 78-year-old Montreal-born Shatner will be in Banff, Alta., to receive the festival's lifetime achievement award in June, to lead a master class and to discuss his career, organizers announced in a statement Tuesday.

Calling Shatner "one of the most celebrated pop-culture icons in the 21st century," festival executive director Peter Vamos said the actor's ability "to keep pace with the times, leverage the latest industry and technology trends, and inject humour every step of the way have been the keys to an unbelievably successful, decades-long career."

Seen Sunday performing a tongue-in-cheek ode to Canada during the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Shatner's upcoming projects include starring in a TV pilot based on the popular Twitter microblog Shit My Dad Says.

His resumé spans television (Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, 3rd Rock from the Sun), theatre (Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Broadway), film (The Brothers Karamazov, The Intruder, Star Trek, Miss Congeniality) as well a host of notable spoken word performances.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/tv/story/2010/03/03/shatner-banff-tv-festival-lifetime-award.html#ixzz0hBJdmeoy

'V': Will William Shatner take on alien invaders?

Four episodes of the re-imagined "V" aired in late 2009, then ABC announced the science-fiction epic would return for the rest of its run after the Winter Olympic. Which it does, on Tuesday, March 30.

"V" shoots in Vancouver, Canada, where the Olympics took place, and there was even a "V" connection during the Closing Ceremonies, which included a memorable appearance by "Star Trek" and "Boston Legal" star William Shatner (who's just been cast in the title role of the CBS pilot based on the hit Twitter feed "S**t My Dad Says.")

The Montreal-born Shatner is the father-in-law of "V" star Joel Gretsch, who plays alien-fighting priest Father Jack. Gretsch is wed to Shatner's daughter Melanie, and the couple has two daughters.

So, the Olympics became a family affair.

"The whole family was in town," Gretsch tells Zap2it. "We got to see a few events together. It's such an honor, the Olympics ... come on, you're part of the Olympics, representing your country, that you grew up in, it was a beautiful moment. I was happy for the family to be able to share it with him."

Despite having a special relationship with Shatner, Gretsch can't guarantee he'll ever appear on "V."

"Yeah," Gretsch says, "I've got an in. He's so busy. He's got 50 different projects going on right now. I think its unlikely, but if a role comes up, and they would ask him, if he'd be up for it ... He's just one of those guys, you know?"

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/03/v-will-william-shatner-take-on-alien-invaders.html