I, as you probably are not aware, love video games. I have since the late ’80s and I still do today, despite the lack of progress in video games as a creative medium. My current run of the gamut is MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games for the few of you that don’t know). I decided, despite my reluctance to have anything to do with anything related to Gene Roddenberry and dullness of City of Heroes, to try Cryptic Studios’ Star Trek Online.

Now, let me get one thing straight right off the bat. I have watched pretty much all of Star Trek, with the exception of about half of Star Trek, and all of Enterprise. There is nothing wrong with Roddenberry’s vision of the future. But if you are expecting to peacefully explore the reaches of the galaxy, you are going to be sorely disappointed. The game is built on Rick Berman’s pissing all over the original, idealic vision of the future that Gene Roddenberry strove to create.

The game is a clunky mess of different ideas clobbled together with, possibly, the best of intentions; however, it is still a clunky mess. To begin with, you don’t just have one character. You have two. Your avatar and your ship. For the most part, the avatar is useless, not because the gameplay is too terrible to stand. Rather the avatar’s portions of the game are buggy beyond use. I have crashed the game eighteen times, not intentionally, but because the engine was designed for the space side of the game.

Next, you have two playable factions in the game. The Federation, and the Klingon Empire. To unlock the Klingons, to have to get a Federation character to level- excuse me- grade 6. And then you get to play as a Klingon, which was apparently rushed through development.

Also, you get to play as a crapton of different aliens. However, you will probably notice as I did that, for the more part, the species are all equally useless. The aliens, and humans, no need to exclude them, all have a trait or two that make them special. Then you can choose another two or three traits to get yourself to a solid four traits. Or you can make your own alien species and choose all four traits with no real added benefit.

As 9 and I have discussed amongst ourselves, the game seems as if one of two things happened during development. One, the project director was weak willing and approved every idea thrown at him. Or two, the project idea had no real idea and just didn’t care about the property.

Instead of just being one of those reviewer that just tears crap down, here are some ideas that actually could make STO an enjoyable game. One, increase the size of space and spread the missions out a bit. Two, faster transit. Three, finish building the Klingon side and introduce the other factions in the game as playable (Really. Romulan Birds of Prey kick ass.).  Three, either cut down of the avatar portions of gameplay, or fix them so the game doesn’t crash whenever you are not in your ship. Four, have someone on the development crew realise that space is completely three dimensional (I want my death from above and below tactics). Five, complete understanding that the game is skill based from the developers so they can actually make the skills worthwhile. And finally, change the setting from right after the Dominion War to a couple of centries later, so that you don’t have the super cheese of sticking in etablished characters in a desperate attempt to give your game credibility.

My final verdict on STO is that it could be a fairly fun space MMO (Not as much fun as Star War Galaxies though.), but it is marred by obvious failings.