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MMOs are like crack and they will run your life and make you a mean malicious person, let alone raise your blood pressure through the roof, or maybe that’s just me. After 3 years of hard-core raiding on World of Warcraft, and another year experimenting with PvP on Warhammer Online and checking out Age of Conan, Eve Online and Tabula Rasa, and the years beforehand with Everquest, Asheron’s Call and Meridian 59, I can clearly say that MMOs have run my life for the past 10 years. Well last April I just gave up on them all cold-turkey, as I didn’t like the person that I’d become as I played them, and that’s when I started reviewing games. And then my little brother graduates college and starts working for Cryptic Studios as a 3d artist and one of the ship designers for Star Trek Online. Great, now I HAVE to check out another MMO. So obviously I’m a bit biased and it’s not fair for me to review this game for you, but I would like to talk about it a bit. When you’re done watching this, make sure to head over to my new channel, ZeitgeistOther, that’s got game-play footage up for all of the games I’ll be reviewing.

First and foremost, the storyline in Star Trek Online takes place in the “prime” Star Trek reality. Recall that the most recent movie involved a bunch of time travel and altering of history, and likely that will lead to sequels and a whole new storyline. This game takes place outside of that, about 20 years following the adventures of Jean Luc Picard. Now, there are two factions represented, The Federation, and The Klingons, but at launch, the storyline and missions of only the Federation will be available, with the Klingon campaign releasing shortly after. That means if you want to play in the Klingon faction, you’ll be forced to only level up via Player vs Player. Obviously this is going to upset some people, but that’s just the way it is.

The Federation campaign opens with a story voiced by Leonard Nemoy letting you know that following the destruction of the Romulan home world, the Klingon took it upon themselves to expand their empire in that area and thus war broke out. On top of that, the Borg have begun attacking the sectors near Earth and you are on one of the ships in the area. Your ship has come to the aid of the U.S.S. Kitimir. Having been recently attacked by the Borg, you beam on board and clear them out for a tutorial of ground combat. Upon beaming back aboard your ship, you find that the higher-ranking officers have all been killed, leaving you in control of your ship. You then need to fly around and beam aboard survivors from other ships in distress, take out some Borg and once the tutorial is complete, you head to Star Fleet command outside of Earth and the game really begins from here.

It’s rumored to take something like 80 hours to reach the max level of 45 and I can certainly believe that. I played all last week and barely hit level 11. The game is divided into tiers and as you progress through them, you gain access to more powerful ships. The ship you start with is very weak, but is able to perform a wide variety of abilities to help you determine how you play later in the game. At level 11 you gain access to your first specialized ship. Cruisers are the tanks, with massive amounts of armor, shields and plenty of room for equipment and weapons, Escorts are your damage dealers, offering faster maneuverability and the ability to equip the most powerful weapons, and Science Vessels are your buff and debuff class, with the ability to repair other ships shields.

The UI is fully customizable allowing you to set it up however you like without mods. The quests in the game have you traveling all over the galaxy on both space and ground missions doing all kinds of Star Treky things like rescuing ships, scanning cargo bays and of course killing a crap load of bad guys. Every zone in the game is instanced, which means that there are a lot of short loading screens, but more importantly, the areas are never overcrowded. Guilds or Clans in Star Trek Online are known as fleets, and raids are known as fleet actions, but in my play time I was unable to participate in any of these.

Obviously the greatest part of MMOs are the game-play and Star Trek Online brings something new to the table by offering both space and ground combat missions and as such you have to manage the skills and abilities of your character for both of these aspects. As you play the game you’ll gain skill points that are shared between the ground and space skills, and there aren’t enough points in the game to max out and learn every skill, which leads me to believe that in the end-game, you’re going to see very unique players as finally not every character will be identical to the others. With that, you’re also able to customize the look of your ship so you won’t look the same as everyone else.

In addition to managing your own stats, you’ve got a full crew of officers that you’ll both select and level up over time. Each officer has their own skill tree as well that you’ll be able to assign points to, giving special powers to your space and ground missions.

The space combat is very intense and takes a lot of attention. Not only are you flying in 3d space, but you’ve got to manage your weapons and abilities, your targets, your power management and your shield management. You’ve got to tactically place yourself in position to hit your enemy’s shields in the same place while you limit the damage coming into your own shields. It really makes you feel like you’re the captain of a star ship. The ground combat is quite a bit simpler and feels pretty much like World of Warcraft with guns. Your officers will beam down to the ground with you and back you up in your missions if there aren’t enough human players around.

Well I just built a new gaming PC so I was able to max out the graphics in this beautiful game. The ships look awesome, the space environments are stunning and the ground missions just look amazing. There are also a wide variety of environments that you’ll come across and they are so detailed that they really immerse you into the action. But if you really want to check out a bunch of the great presentation, head over to my other channel.

While there isn’t much voice acting in the game, Leonard Nemoy recorded a bunch of little blips that you’ll listen to as you enter new zones and of course it’s awesome to hear Spack as you play the game! The sound effects are everything you would expect and I found it special every time you complete a quest or kill a special ship a subtle Star Trek diddy will play in the background. With that, the soundtrack is wonderful and fully orchestrated. The combat music is intense and you’ll hear a bunch of familiar tunes as you boldly go where no man has gone before.

It’s tough to cover all of the aspects of MMOs because they are just so massive. Having only a week to play Star Trek Online, I wasn’t even able to scratch the surface of this monster, but you can bet your ass I’m going to keep trekking as often as I can. Being that my brother was involved in the development of this game, it’s not fair for me to tell you whether or not I think you’ll like this game, but I obviously loved it. If you love MMOs, Star Trek or are just looking for something new, it might be worth your time to check this out when it’s released in February. Have some questions or comments? Make sure to leave them below!