Set zipper to stun!
After creating your character, which I think actually has more customizability than in NWO, you soon end up with your own "starter" spaceship which just like you and your officers (party / away team) can be upgraded with various gear and "injured" if you lose combat. Yep. Spaceships get injuries. Poor spaceship! Terminology aside, the overall feeling I got was that space, especially near planets, is messy! Given that each player is a captain of his or her own ship, you can see why this would be the case. This is not a bad thing though, as without all that clutter the universe would be a pretty lonely place.
The space travel and space combat are actually pretty well done, and are the highlights of my experience in the game. In the end you are still basically a boat, and trying to cross the "T" in combat for efficiency. That is, you want to broadside your full payload at enemy vessels who are either directly facing or running away from you. Sure there's shields (which you can adjust the facing of) and photon torpedoes and lasers, but switch that out for old fashioned cannons and it's the same principle. The little artefact mini game that you'll often encounter is also a nice enough diversion for a small amount of loot. I also really like the "random space" sector that doesn't seem to have main quests but instead randomized missions that pop up as you approach points of interest.
Ground wise movement and environments are quite nice too, but the combat is... clunky at best. You don't get the phasers with only 2 settings of stun and kill like on the show. Nope, this time they act like the same math driven weapons you find everywhere else and the formula of "If old weapon dmg < new weapon dmg = switch to new weapon" certainly applies. Once you have a full away team though you might not even have to worry about the ground fighting so much as they will basically handle everything for you (at least in the little I played they did). I actually tested this on a Gorn planet. Didn't fire a shot, yet my away team slaughtered all those lizard men with no problems. Some of the randomized missions though are... lacking in decor to say the least. I did one where basically all I did was run through an empty cave. Exciting stuff that.
Still I can see cool potential in this game, and if I wasn't stuck into Neverwinter Online (D&D is more my thing) then I'd probably give it a more expansive look. For now though I think I'll give it 3 tricorders out of 5. Not the best MMO out there for my tastes but certainly not one of the worst.
I liked STO well enough for the brief time I played. Not the space fighting, which as you say is like every ship combat set-up, all of which I find equally tedious, but the rest of it was a solid MMO. It's not my favorite setting and I had better options elsewhere, but I would certainly play it quite happily if it was all that was available. Could say the same about all Cryptic MMOs really.
ReplyDeleteHmm, that's a pretty positive review for Cryptic games. Maybe once/if I burn out on NWO I'll go check the rest of their titles! :)
DeleteWhat a shame about the phasers! Would've been awesome if the game was actually a bit different in that regard.
ReplyDeleteIndeed but that would go both ways. :P Also they then couldn't give you the progression feeling if you start out with a one hit kill weapon (on most life forms). You'd pretty much be picking between pistol / rifle variants just for range I'd think.
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