Star Trek Online review 2023

 Game : Star Trek Online

Developer : Cryptic Studios

Published by : Gear Box Games

Format :Freemium/F2p

Released : 2010

STAR TREK ONLINE - An MMORPG that started life as a subscription based game. And became freemium or free to play a couple of years later. I have been Playing this game on and off for the last 8 years and have logged in around 4000 hours if not more. The game sells you the fantasy of being a starship captain in the star trek universe.  Command your favorite ship, from the 3 main factions like Klingon, Romulan, Federation and a host of races you can create in the character creation screen. Let's get right on it.

Gameplay

The game play of this game is split into 2 sections, ground and space. I will cover them separately.

Space

The space segment is where a majority of the game will be played and also the part of the game that receives the most attention from players and developers. Here you will command your mighty spaceship, take it to various missions featured in the episodes available to you. You can configure your ship with various weapons and consoles to give it various abilities that can help you on your journey. One can spend hours just mixing and matching parts to get the most optimal setup.

Ground

Ground combat, the other aspect of the game. In the past the ground segment of the game felt like an afterthought and wasn't given much priority. That has improved in recent years and now ground combat and exploration feels more fleshed out. But still not as refined as space. 

Your objective in both segments in the game, apart from combat and proving your superiority with powerful weapons and skills, also involves exploration, resource and raw material search and scanning and so on. In true looter shooter fashion, you collect materials to power up your equipment.

Barbie

There is also another segment of the game that is done but not really focused on. The barbie segment, for both space and ground. This part of the game is basically for aesthetics and nothing more. You can make your ship or character look however you like with any and all the vanity items available in game, ranging from clothes, shields, pets and many more. 

Graphics & Sound

As you would expect from a game that's entering its 13th year (as of this writing), the graphic engine is dated, very dated. While the developers have done their best to update it, you can still see the age. That's not saying that the game is not pretty, it is. And if you compared the graphics from the older missions to the current ones, you can see how much they have improved. It's amazing how much they have pushed the graphics engine to keep up with current standards. 

The sound is what you get from the various tv shows like TNG, Voyager, TOS, DS9, Enterprise and others. Even some of the actors came back to reprise their role. So as good as you can expect in this dept.

Freemium

Now, as mentioned earlier the game is a freemium or free to play. Meaning that there will be elements of micro transactions happening. This can be done to progress faster, get more powerful ships and weapons or merely for the barbie look. The game is still entirely playable without spending a single dime, but as always, free players will not be as powerful as the paying ones or even if they are, they get there slower. The in-game currency you buy with real money is called Zen. And 1000 zen is equivalent to USD10.

Conclusion

This is by far the best Star Trek game out there. No other provides the customization level that this game gives you. The Story episodes vary in excitement levels, some you only do to progress the story, some you will repeat because the story is so good, especially the later arcs. 

The micro transaction is there but with way the game is run, you can play and progress without spending anything other than your time. Especially when they give away free ships during events. So if you have strong willpower and self control, you can play without ever spending anything. 

13 years down the line this is still a good game.I give it a : 7.5/10 - Because of Micro transaction

8.5/10 - If there was no micro transaction