It’s awesome. The end.

…

No, just kidding. I mean, yes, it is awesome, but I’m not going to just leave it at that. STO is a fantastic game so far; of course, it’s still in beta, so they’re ironing out some kinks, but that sort of thing can be very easily forgiven. The game takes place in the original or “pure” Trek universe, as I like to call it, 20 years after the events that led to Spock being thrown back in time and creating the parallel universe occupied by JJ Abrams and other beat-boxing directors (The “countdown” events take place approximately8 years and one month after Nemesis, so STO is 28 years later, give or take a few months).

The universe, as the story goes, is pretty much in chaos. Romulus was destroyed, which means that billions of their people died; not to mention that the Cardassion Union is a big fat mess — and to top things off, the Borg have returned, right in the middle of a war between the Federation and the Klingons.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good set-up story to me.

The game play itself is really, really fun. I mean, really fun. You can play as a Federation captain (you start out as an ensign and are given captaincy of a ship by the end of the tutorial), and choose from an array of pre-made races — or you can create your own. The Federation tutorial starts out with a rescue of the U.S.S. Khitomer (Fans of the shows will remember the name Khitomer from Star Trek VI, as well as the back-story of the death of Worf’s father in TNG) and a fairly simple tutorial that you are guided through by an EMH — voiced by Zachary Quinto. By the end of the tutorial, you’ve gained a bridge officer and are given captaincy of the ship you took command of during the harrowing Borg invasion/tutorial scenario.

STO seems much more engaging than most other MMOs I’ve played. Yes, there is that aspect of “point and click” when you and your away team are on the surface of a planet fighting, let’s say, the Borg — but there’s so much more to it. The element of space combat brings a lot more thoughtfulness and real-time use of tactics to the game; you can adjust your speed between one-quarter impulse and full impulse, direct power to certain shields, and you really must move around and keep an eye on things as you’re fighting, because you do have four shields and the more each one gets hit, the weaker it becomes.

The game is, of course, not perfect. There are bouts of lag, there are glitches, and there are often wait times to get on the server. However, this is a beta of the game. The idea of the open beta stage of a game like this is to push the limits of what the game has so far to offer before it goes live. Obviously Cryptic didn’t expect the game to be quite as popular as it is, because they’ve been constantly increasing server capacity over the past few days, and will be continuing to do so. Overall, however, this is a really fun game to play, and I can’t wait for the full release!