Star Trek Online has been a long time coming, but it is less than a week before the early pre-order launch begins. We have been playing through the open beta and have press access for the full launch of the game so we will be covering it in detail right from the day of launch. Anyway, forget that. Here are some of our early impressions from the game:

The game begins with a tutorial and introduction on how to play Star Trek Online as well bringing in some of the story. I won’t spoil things before the game actually launches fully for those who are waiting to pay to play, but I am pleased with how this part of the game plays out.

As with all multiplayer games, Star Trek Online has level based gameplay, you begin as a Lieutenant Grade 1, and then 10 levels later you will become a Lieutenant Commander which means more ships and improved weapons are available to you. There are various sales people in the game which allows you to buy and sell ship parts that you collect from enemies and ships you take down in space. All captains have a bank which lets them hold items as well as an exchange that works like an auction house

The single best part of Star Trek Online is the space simulation section. This is what Star Trek fans have been waiting for, the chance to actually captain your own ship. MAKE IT SO! The sound effects are perfect, it is very easy to control and thankfully has a good tutorial early on to get new players eased in very quickly. There are numerous ways in which you can control the ship, either via keyboard or with a mouse which is my preferred method. Not everything in this section of the game is about shooting your torpedoes, you need to manage your shields and work out the best way to take our enemies. Good news is that the space battles look excellent, the textures are all good and the background of space looks excellent.

As many of you know, the game has away team sections where you will beam to a planet’s surface or to the deck of various ships such as enemies or other federation vessels. This allows different gameplay into the game. It is this area of the game that is a little buggy at the moment, but the recently released major patch to the open beta has improved this a lot. I actually enjoy it, but it does feel like a Star Trek version of City of Heroes, which isn’t a bad thing I guess, but may not appeal to the masses. I hope it does though as there is a lot of fun to be had.

As always with open beta titles, it is hard to come up with a final verdict, but right now I really enjoy the game and I fully expect Star Trek fans will love it, but it hard to tell if it will keep a hold of subscribers for years to come, and that is where the success will be decided on. We’ll have more in the next week or so once the game launches.

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