Why Aren't There Any Good Science Fiction Films These Days?

So what do I mean?

I'll being with what the term "science fiction" means to me, what I look for in a film with that as the labelled genre.

Let's go through the last year or so: To me, for a film/book/tv show to be labelled a "sci-fi" it must feature two key things. First, a level of technology that is different to our own. Notice I chose to use the word "different" and not "better" or "more advanced." That was deliberate, because a film set in a universe where the internal combustion engine was never invented, and clockwork is used as the primary form of locomotion/energy generation is still science fiction. Break the phrase down; fictional science. 

Nope. Back to Bond with you.

Second, it's not enough to just have a setting that features a different level or form of technology, the film itself must be more than just "Twilight with Space Lasers" or "Die Hard 5: Death Star Revenge," and this is the absolute biggest pet peeve of this critic, seeing a film listed under "sci-fi/action" or "sci-fi/thriller" when it's just the same boring action tropes covered in shiny CG and lens flare (no guesses for who I'm referring to there). The film needs to utilise the environment, the universe, and weave it together into the integral parts of the plot. You can't just have a cowboy film with aliens and call it sci-fi, it's not. It's just a cowboy shooting at an alien.

Some examples of recent films that have utterly failed to hit the sci-fi butter zone:

Prometheus

Ridley Scott, you wonderful man, what were you playing at? Taking one of the most successful sci-fi franchises of all time and ruining it with this. I'd rather watch AVP Requiem again. It's not enough that you decided to forgo writing an actual story, create any decent characters or set pieces in favour of side-stepping canon, you had to go and ruin the Xenomorph as well. It looks ridiculous. Not to mention the main antagonist closely resembling the offspring of Chunk and The Michelin Man, what were you thinking?

This is a Space Jockey?!

But why does it fail as a science fiction film? It's set in the future, sure. There's space ships and aliens, sure. But it's nothing spectacular, it's a hash together of so many things we've seen before, in previous Alien franchise films as well as further afield. What was missing, the vital spark of pure sci-fi, is the unknown. You don't throw out a film, cobbled together from the ideas you had 30-odd years ago but just couldn't fit into the original franchise. If you do you end up with Jurassic Park 3, and nobody wants that. Sadly, that's what we got. New money for old rope. Instead of sci-fi, I'm relabelling it "action/horror in space."

Total Recall

If you haven't seen it, go watch the original Paul Verhoeven version. And then Robocop. And then Starship Troopers, the man is a genius.

However, the remake starring (for some reason) Colin Farrell was also not a science fiction film. And no, I'm not going to harp on about it being nothing new, it's a remake. And even then, the original was based on a spectacular book by Philip K. Dick (one of the fathers of sci-fi) titled "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale." Originality, less important with this one then. 

A Total Recall without Kuato isn't a Total Recall

So where did it go wrong? In the execution, that's where. Truly, the film misses the point of the original (disregarding the source material, assuming we're working with a direct remake of the Verhoeven film) the idea that a man can have his memory copied over, muddled up, until he's unsure of what's real and what is just the "mental holiday" he paid for. Instead of utilising this as a way to keep the audience guessing as to what is real and what is implanted memory, or even if the implanted memories were originally his that he'd had wiped, the film quickly breaks down into a by-the-numbers action film. This might as well just be an amnesia-driven Statham film. Don't get me wrong, I love a good JS film, but this is supposed to be sci-fi. And yes, Len Wiseman, we know you have a pretty wife, there's no need to keep showing us.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Yes, I'm a trekkie/trekker or whatever the parlance is these days. I somewhat enjoyed the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek, but not because it was Star Trek. Abrams made damn sure that we all knew he wasn't going canon with this one from the start. The whole "it's an alternate timeline" rubbish belongs in 80s TV, not multi-million dollar grossing blockbusters.

Did he think we wouldn't see this coming?

Remove the established universe, as Abrams did, and what you're left with is a very mundane film riding on the wave of praise the first film generated. By-the-numbers action film, very little in the way of character arcs, a surprise twist that wasn't a surprise twist and dear god, so much CG. More CG than absolutely anyone ever needed. So far as fitting my rules of sci-fi goes, yes it's full to the brim with phasers, teleporters, warp drives etc. but none of it can really be called sc-fi any more - we've had over 50 years of it now, it's like calling a film about modern fighter pilots a sci-fi; it's just not new and exiting to the audience any more. Regarding the integration of the universe into the plot, to qualify as a sci-fi by my second rule; still pretty poor. You could take the exact same plot, same characters, same twists etc. and set it on a galleon in the 16th century and not a lot would change.

Oblivion

This is so obviously intended
to be Apple tech.

Wow. This film really knows how to take brilliant ideas from anywhere, cobble them together and slap a Tom Cruise in it. Trope after trope after trope. None really gelling together to make a cohesive story. You can't really put "last man on earth" with "the guys in white are actually bad and the guys in black are actually good" with "giant red glowing eye computer wants to kill us all" with "let's hijack a ship and fly into their mothership" with "everyone is a clone" and really expect anything good to come out of it. It's a sausage film. Made of the best bits of other films. Sprinkled liberally with Tom Cruise. So this neither satisfies the first, nor the second of my requirements. How can it? When it's a chimera of other, better films. It deserves absolutely no credit for any success it has

.

As a point of balance and fairness I feel I should mention those films that have hit that sci-fi sweet spot in recent months:
- Looper

Yep. Just one.

So how do I think the problem can be solved?

New IP.

The major, major problem with the science fiction film industry is that films are being made, either of books written during the height of the sci-fi era (early 60s to late 70s) which have been feeding our pop culture for nearly 40 years now, and there's not a lot left we haven't seen/someone has been brave enough to make. If not "adapted from...." then "ripped off from..." seems to be the name of the game. Time and time again I see films being released in the same formulaic manner, playing it safe to make back all the millions of dollars spent on the shiny CG. We need risk takers, we need established directors who have the influence, the industry confidence and the finances to make passion projects, ideas that no one else would even risk giving the go ahead to without a S. Spielberg, R. Johnson or a M. Bay stamped all over it. (This is not a plea for Michael Bay to do any passion projects, for the love of god please, the world can't take that many helicopters, explosions, underwear models and Linkin Park soundtracks)

If not an established, proven director, then some bright spark coming from the bottom up. Like Josh Trank and Max Landis.

Landis made his name with a short film detailing the events unfolding in a comic book arc titles The Death and Return of Superman (linked -->) but moved onto the big screen with his first feature, Chronicle. It was by no means perfect, but what it did achieve was an injection of fresh IP. I very much enjoyed Chronicle, the idea of every comic book origin story but instead of kids destined for greatness getting bitten by radioactive spiders or what have you, it deals with ordinary teenagers and how they deal with super powers. Directed by Josh Trank, it did pretty well. It even earned Trank the tiller on the new Fantastic Four movie, and most probably the upcoming Venom origin. Both of which will help us to forget the two awful examples we have from the last 10 years.

Whilst not technically a science fiction film, by my definition at least, Chronicle is certainly something I want to see more of. We need more universes. More unique and interesting backdrops to more unique stories. Not just the same old tropes re-hashed with a younger actor taking the lead.

Blacklight: Retribution

Free-to-Play games are a godsend, for the financially deficient such as myself. Therefore, I tend to jump on any and all that come along, except that horrendous poke-in-the-eye of my childhood that is Age of Empires Online. So I was mighty pleased when Steam started advertising Blacklight Retribution, having heard nothing but good things and being in serious need of a competitive multiplayer game of late. Killing Floor occupies most of my shootingness, but sometimes killing mindless zombies isn't satisfying enough.

Speaking of zombies, Retribution is the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down, developed by Zombie Studios and released on the PC, Xbox and PS3 back in 2010. I have not played it, I had not even heard of it until now, but I suggest you at least check out the Wiki, as Zombie Studios is planning on making a big franchise - including a feature film and comics as well as subsequent games in the series, like Retribution.

Gameplay

TF2 goes Victorian Era

Blacklight Retribution follows a very simple, tried and tested format for online competitive multiplayer. If you've even been near a games platform in the last five years you've probably seen someone play a Call of Duty game/clone online. Blacklight is that, but not shit. By that I mean it has the same game types, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, Domination etc. but it's not full of Xbox COD asshats because it's a PC exclusive. All hail the PC gaming master race.

There's a nice little tutorial that is similar to those found in the more recent COD games, i.e. set in a firing range, which holds your hand through all the basics of the game from jumping and crouching to calling in heavy support. After that there are servers specifically designed for new players (level limit is 10) where you can improve your skills and level up slightly faster whilst only playing against people of a similar skill level. There is always one Level 10 bastard who's amazing in each round, but usually they usually rank themselves up and out of the server fairly quickly. Once you hit Level 10 it's off into the big, wide world of constantly full servers and unexpected kick-voting.

It's good, but it just doesn't say 'Fuck You' enough

Regarding the weapon choice, it begins very limited but can expanded through either grind play or shelling out real money (more on that later). Each 'Agent' begins with a standard assault rifle and standard gear - combat knife and a grenade. The spectrum of weapon types includes everything you'd expect to find in a modern/futuristic shooter these days; SMGs, LMGs, bolt action rifles, burst fire rifles, shotguns, pistols etc. However, these 'classes' of weapon are only the basic format.

Bigger is always better

After you get your hands on, say, a burst fire rifle receiver, you can add a sniper scope, a silencer, drum mag and better stock and turn it into a long-range, silent death dealer. Each upgrade part is unlocked via 'packs' which are rewarded for completing individual feats or as leveling up rewards or can be bought in the marketplace.

Not pictured: the enemy, fleeing

So the guns do the shooting, the grenades do the exploding and the knives do the kniving; everything works well. The sort-of USP that Blacklight: Retri....y'know what, from now on I'm gonna call it BR. The sort-of USP that BR pushes is the ability to use in-game credits (GP) which you accumulate for kills, capturing points, healing teammates etc. to buy ammo/health packs, specialist weaponry such as flamers and rocket launchers, as well as hulking mech Hardsuits with mini-guns and rail-rifles, in-game. Hardsuits are indeed as bitching as they sound. Nigh on impossible to kill with basic weaponry, unless several players swarm them to take advantage of their oil tanker-esque turn rate. These suits do have a glowing Lylat Wars weakspot, if you scan them with the game's other USP - the Hyper Reality Visor or HRV - which identifies the weakspot, as well as penetrating terrain for some distance, highlighting ammo dumps and other players.

HRV

Clearly a responsible thing to do mid-battle

Crushing your enemies with violent amounts of firepower not enough for you? Well you won't be disappointed with BR, because after humiliating the enemy MVP who's been on a killstreak for the entire game right up until he got your knife in his back, their camera will follow you for a few seconds before they respawn. This gives you the perfect opportunity to use the taunt system. A simple button tap and you can tea-bag, flip off, crane-kick or blow a raspberry and all they can do is watch. This made me giggle, as it seems like an attempt to encourage flaming/trolling in-game but in practice is actually just a bit of harmless fun that no-one takes too seriously.

Overall the fighty-shooty-stabby stuff is pretty damn good.

Aesthetics

Imagine taking Killzone 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and doing this with them:

After one thing leads to another, you'll get the great style of BR. It's got that brown/grey/black palette of Killzone, but not to the extent that it resembles 3-day-old curry, blended with the more 'realistic' style of COD. Also, some good character and weapon skins. There's lots of bloom as well. On one level I was genuinely blinded by the sun so much I died before I saw the enemy. Yes, I died, but I died because of lovely, lovely looking level design.

Looks damn good for FREE

My rig handled BR ramped up to Ultra, as it always does (smugface) but the game looks great even on the lowest settings. Bear (rawr!) in mind that we're still talking about a FTP game here, a game that's cost you nothing at all and yet can still compete visually with those so-say "Triple A" titles. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Given that the game is entirely online-competitive, I'm shocked that so much was invested into the visual style. I'm certainly happy that it was though, as the game is a pleasure to look at whilst I'm dominating every game. Ok, that happened one time, 25-1 KDR without a Hardsuit bitches!

Longevity

Seems a bit superfluous to include this section, so I'll be brief.

Dr Misunderstood

The game is an online shooter. They have no limit, other than a level cap or individual boredom. I see myself dipping in and out of this game for many months to come. It's currently not possible to power through a good few hours because the sheer weight of players has done some serious damage to the servers. I've often signed in and have been greeted with a message informing me to basically "fuck off and try again, you didn't pay for this so you're not entitled to complain when all our servers are full." Which is fair enough, considering that the game went live on 3rd April, and by 30th April it had ONE MILLION DOLLARS, I mean, PLAYERS!

I'll let it cool off for a few weeks.

Freemium

The word applied to a FTP game that has optional in-game content to be bought with real money. And it's never been done better.

Rental system

It is entirely possible to unlock roughly 85% of the items, weapons and aesthetics in BR through simple grind. For each round you play in, depending on how well you and your team did, you can expect to earn about 200GP. This is the amount the game's internal marketplace charges you to rent a weapon for 24 hours. That's right, RENT. I flamed a tad at this when I first started playing; I only had an assault rifle and desperately wanted to play as a sniper so I checked out the store, found myself a custom-built bolt action rifle and spent my hard-earned GP on it. The gun was great, but I was irked when I logged on the following day and was told that my rental had run out and did I want to renew it.

Simple marketplace, nuff said

I went away, sat in my Zen Garden and raked some gravel for a few hours, contemplating why the game's developers (Perfect World, also the guys behind Rusty Hearts, Torchlight 1 + 2 and the great Star Trek Online that I'm addicted to) chose to organise the marketplace this way. The conclusion I came to was simple and brilliant. It's a 'try-before-you-buy' system. You spend a little GP, which is free as you earn it in-game, to see what a certain item is like. Should you hate it, then you've lost barely anything. But should you love it, as I did with my sniper rifle, then you've paid a tiny amount to enjoy a different play style for 24 hours. I am now currently saving up my GP to afford the 5500GP price-tag on permanently buying the bolt action receiver, so I can start building my own sniper rifle.

What the hell is this?!

Even though you can grind your way to affording all the shiniest looking guns, bitches and bling you can also just pay money for them. Should I choose to, I can spend less than I feel the game is worth to buy some Zen Credits, which cost actual money. I can then use these in place of GP in order to get my gear instantly. This system is the basis of the Freemium model. You give the gamer the options of hard graft to get their reward for free, or shell out a small amount to get it now. BR does it perfectly, as at no point does it throw up pay-walls which block off certain content only available for purchase with Zen Credits. Well, at least not so far.

Conclusion

This is a solid FPS, with great online play and a healthy amount of customisation. It has all the elements that make the multiplayer aspects of games like COD attractive but without the £40 price tag. Wholeheartedly recommend it to all FPS fans, but also to anyone who's ever wanted to get into FPS gaming but doesn't want to A) pay £40 for the privilege, or B) have the sexual activity of their mother called into question by members of the opposition.

If I Were A Pirate...

I must begin by stating, with the exception of this disclaimer, the content of this post is directly quoted from a friend of mine, I added the images for lols. We shall call him 'Mr E' (Mystery, geddit?).

So, I've been a pirate pretty much constantly since I was desperate to have my own copy of Hitman: Blood Money, which I had failed to finish at a friend's house back in 2006. After torrenting 4 different copies of the Spanish demo, I finally got the hang of spotting a decent torrent from a virus-filled pile of troll, mounting and burning iso files and cracking the installs. Since then I've probably downloaded thousands of episodes of TV shows, films, albums and games. By far the biggest contributor to those numbers has to be TV. The regular shows I'm addicted to that only air in the US; House, Boardwalk Empire, 30 Rock, Californication etc. as well as entire back-catalogues of TV shows such as Lost, Frasier and the Star Trek series.

Some Films Just Repel Money


The films that I download are nearly always the newest DVD releases, usually US rips, which means I can watch them a full few months before the DVD is released in the UK. On occasion, I'll have a craving for a certain film, or as I've been doing recently with Nicolas Cage, torrent every reputable film an actor/director has done in order to binge. Some people justify their torrenting by saying they only torrent "bad movies" that they wouldn't pay to see in the cinema. What they're really saying is "I want to see this, but I don't want you to see me seeing it. Unless it's ironically."

I used to torrent every game I could, the last successful torrent being the point-click Jurassic Park game late last year, but before that there is a yawning gap all the way back to Dawn of War II in 2009. I do not torrent games anymore.

The same goes for music, I tend to either buy physical albums from the bands I adore because I enjoy having an actual copy, usually special edition copies. Sometimes I might hear a song I don't recognise and torrent the album just to listen. If I like it, I keep it and listen a lot. If I don't, it falls into the near-endless bucket that is my iTunes library where I get no enjoyment from it.

So that was me, Pirate King, and my torrenting activities circa 2006-2011. So what's changed? Well, I've been repeatedly enlightened by the wonderful and truly insightful Jim Sterling. He has, with his recent Jimquisition mini-series on Pirating (hosted on The Escapist, check it out), altered my perspective on pirating. I used to be of the mindset that "if it's free, why not?" However, with my new enlightened outlook on the subject, I am disavowing as much torrenting as I can in favour of the On-Demand Revolution.


Here's my piracy situation at present:

--> I barely torrent music anymore, I've bought more CDs in the last year than I have in the last 5

--> I do NOT torrent games anymore, specifically because of Steam (more on that later)

--> I do still torrent some films, but that will change soon

--> I still do and will continue to torrent those regular US-shown TV shows.


And here's why I've changed:


On-Demand is the hot stuff.

I'm sure most people have seen, via Facebook, a few of their friends start a 1 Month free trial with Netflix recently. I signed myself up as well. Now, whilst Netflix UK is only offering a very limited (mostly Bollywood) supply of movies to stream for only £6 a month, the idea really hit home with me. Yes, it's been around for ages, along with it's chief competitors Amazon On-Demand, Hulu, SkyGo, iTunes etc, but I'd never given it much attention because, frankly, it wanted my money and torrenting didn't.

But £6 a month....for all the reasonably new (as well as lots of classic) films and TV shows you could want to watch, streamed straight to your PC or PS3, XBOX, Wii or even your smartphone. That's far too good to ignore.

Currently, Netflix has a dire selection due to licencing issues, but that is set to improve. The other companies I mentioned offer a similar service, however I have yet to explore any of these alternatives. The important point, the revolutionary point, is the business model. It is, as I understand it, thus: Netflix buys a TV show or film from the studios, and distributes it as many times as demand calls for, without expending our planet's natural resources to press and distribute discs. Each member pays a flat rate, so the more members the more Netflix has to spend on procuring more content. It can only get bigger and better. In my mind, the entire company is effectively some servers, a Purchasing department and a PR department. And it's the bloody future.

The same model has been seen for years, iTunes has done exactly the same for the music industry. Since the iTunes Store became the nearly-endless pit of music that it is today music piracy has plummeted, mine included. Now, whilst I don't use the iTunes store, I am a big fan of it. Selling music, games, apps and even films and TV episodes to anyone, regardless of whether they own an 'i' product.

Steam is the exact same model, but for gaming. A digital store which functions by spending money acquiring games, and then selling them endlessly as demand dictates. It has completely removed my desire to torrent ANY game, especially indie games like The Binding of Isaac. I picked this great game up on Steam for £1.85, barely the price of a pint. Why quibble that amount of money? If you say you can't afford to pay that to a bunch of indie developers making such wonderful products and torrent it instead, then what business do you have owning a PC? Surely the several hundred pounds of PC you're reading this on could be better spent elsewhere. £1.85 is so little money I even felt bad after playing the same for nearly 20 hours; I wanted to buy it again, just to give the developers some more money. So I bought it for a friend instead.


Some of you might be thinking why I, currently unemployed and penniless, would be willing to ignore the free option for the paid. The simple answer is convenience. Steam, iTunes, Netflix, they all provide the content for much less than a high street shop, and they do it instantly. Granted, your internet connection might affect that somewhat, but you can't argue with 25% off the RRP of new game titles such as Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3. Or an entire new album for £7.99. Or an entire month of TV and film for £6.

This is a ridiculous thing for people to be ignoring, and why I feel a tad ashamed that I've continued to torrent when services such as this are so readily available. I strongly suggest you head to Netflix and take advantage of their free month trial, just remember they'll begin to charge you automatically after 30 days (though, you can sign up, then cancel the same day, and still use it for the next 30 days). Similarly, if you're a PC gamer and you don't have Steam....well, I can't really believe you exist so I shan't patronise you. And everyone knows about iTunes. [I would post links, but let's face it, we're the Google Generation, do it yourself]


So it would appear that the industry has ever base covered then. Not entirely. There is still the matter of international On-Demand services. Currently, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five all have on-demand services, but they're not available outside of the UK because of licencing issues; stupid, backwards licencing issues. (Example: did you ever watch live TV at uni on your laptop without a TV licence? Congratulations on breaking the law, I know I did!) The US has similar on-demand services, Hulu, Amazon and iTunes to name a few. The problem, for me at least, is with the lack of international legality. I can't watch The Big Bang Theory legally in the UK without waiting an arbitrary number of weeks for it to be shown on E4, and some shows like House, just don't get shown in the UK, unless you wait 2-3 years and are watching Five during the mid afternoon because you're unemployed.

It seems to me that there is a gaping hole in the market for a company or companies to bridge the gap, legally. Torrenting has been doing it illegally for years now, with my full support. Because of the vast differences between the TV industry in the US and in the UK there is very little compatibility. Were a company such as Netflix to bridge this gap, possibly by charging their members an extra few pounds a month, they could bounce shows from the UK to the US and vice versa. Surprisingly it truly is a two-way street, something that was made very clear by the latest instalment of the BBC series Sherlock. Many Americans enjoy this show, and I'm sure quite a few had to resort to less than legal means in order to watch it.

My take-home message is this; stop torrenting if you have the means to procure your entertainment in a legal fashion. It's always your consumer responsibility to seek out the best deals, but free is not the best deal because of complex economics and pie charts regarding money flow and something called 'synergising backward overflow.' If you haven't got the means to take advantage of these cheaper-than-crotch-shots services, then sell your PC and feed your family.

If you continue to torrent for whatever reason, I'm not judging you in the slightest, but do try to ween yourself off them. Nobody wants the feds breaking down your door at 3am to seize your all-MLP hard drive and count the number of episodes you've watched. Each one takes a year off your life, so I've heard....


Oh, and yes, we all would:

Star Trek Online

Guess what? Another MMO went Free-To-Play on Steam at the beginning of February. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to squeeze into a Lycra bodysuit, pin on a comm badge and holster my phaser.

MMOs as a concept, baffle me. Something that I touched on in my DC Universe Online review. The idea of buying a game, and then continuing to buy the ability to play it just doesn't make even a modicum of sense to me. Clearly, I'm in the minority, judging by the sheer gargantuan success of MMOs including World Of Warcraft, EVE, Everquest etc. Therefore I shall be putting my prejudices aside for the time being.

Developed by Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes/Villains), using their Cryptic Engine, Star Trek Online is set during the 25th century - a turbulent time in the Alpha Quadrant, some years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The Federation and Klingon Empire are at war. Threat from the Romulan Star Empire, the Borg Collective, Hirogen hunters and many other smaller enemy factions are ever-present. Not to mention that the shape-shifting Udine (formerly Species 8472) are larking about impersonating high-ranking members of every faction's military, causing the breakdown of all hopes for a diplomatic solution.

How much? Oh I get it free during the game? Lovely.

It is into this world that you are thrown. As a low ranking Star Fleet officer you are given command of a star-ship, as the Fleet needs every available ship on the front lines. You are issued missions from various NPCs across the map, in standard MMO style. Some missions progress the main story line, which has been divided into handy 'episodes' used to help track your progress through the story and even be replayed at leisure. Other NPCs chuck out the standard, monotonous fetch quests etc that all MMOs have for resource collection/experience farming. These, I ignore. There are also PVP queues that can be accessed from any common area, but owing to the structure of the game (to be discussed later) they're barely worth any attention.

Even this doesn't do it justice.

Pretty standard MMO stuff then. The interesting aspects of Star Trek Online, as with all MMOs, comes from character creation and combat.

Character Creation

The first choice to make is career path. Are you a Spock, McKoy, Kirk or Wesley Crusher? The three paths, Tactical (Red), Engineering (Yellow) and Science (Blue) will be fairly familiar to many MMO players. Tactical focuses on combat buffs and aggressive abilities in order to ramp their DPS, Engineering focuses on support powers such as fabrication of turrets and shield generators, and Science officers provide healing and crowd control abilities. I chose Engineer.

Next, you are asked to choose your Race. Human, Trill, Bajoran, Vulcan, there are many to choose from. You are also presented with the opportunity to create your own entire species, from physical attributes to four specific character perks. I chose this option. I saw no reason to not indulge in every part of customisation, even down to the colour of my character's eyes and nails. Because I can. And that level of customisation, of sculpting an avatar into a being you created and you own, is what I love most about RPG games.

Spines? Yes please, two rows.

With my character styled to out-the-arse levels of detail, I was thrown right into the tutorial (narrated by the wonderful Zachery Quinto I might add) which leads you through a ground combat section, teaching you the basics. More on that later. Upon completion of the tutorial, and a few other sections of story progressing and 'go-here/press-this' mission etc. you are commissioned as a Captain, and given your own ship.

Here's the second level of character creation. There are three classes of ships; Cruisers, which are general warships set up to be balance between speed, damage and survivability, Escorts, smaller and faster than Cruisers, with more fire power but weaker shields, and Science Ships, with high shield strength but weaker hulls, focusing on abilities. Each one of these ship classes reflects the character classes, but does not mean all Science Officers only do well in Science Ships, as your own abilities have little effect on space combat. I picked Escort and stuck with it through the ranks, however it is easy to swap from one class to the other when you receive a free ship token from the Admiral upon reaching rank 10, 20, 30 etc.

Here's mine, she'll do 0.5 past light speed.

A word on the levelling system. It's simple enough to grind, easy enough to level without grinding and great for streamlining your class by choosing different upgrades. By assigning low ranking members of your crew to carry out missions on-board or elsewhere in the sector you can generate resources and XP without even playing the game, as they carry out these missions in real time.

From this point onwards everything is down to you and your character. As I've stated, there are story missions, daily missions and the PVP/PVE arenas to fight in. The stars are the limit.

Space Combat

Holy woah.

Do you remember watching any of the Star Trek series or movies and wishing you could be in the captain's chair, barking orders at your bearded First Officer to 'engage evasive manoeuvre Alpha Epsilon 3 on your mark?' Well, Star Trek Online pretty much has that to a tee. Space combat is great. The encounters are all within fully 3D maps, allowing for everything you could think to do with your Star Ship. Cloaking, tractor beams, evasive manoeuvres, torpedo spreads, tachyon beams, boarding parties, they're all incorporated somehow. I would liken it to Star Trek Legacy, because that's what it is, but with a ton of extra abilities and tactics thrown in to expand the opportunities in each battle. Also, it's Archer free!

Least threatening pirate queen ever.

Two examples of how you can engage in space combat. I am currently Level 32, using a Defiant class (the one from Deep Space 9, also Worf has one. Photo below) which is an Escort rammed to the bulkheads with narrow firing arc/high damage cannons and not a lot else. Generally my tactic is to come at an enemy, usually a Romulan D'Deridex at present, with all power to weapons, forward shields at max and all offensive abilities activated (increased rate of fire, damage, area of effect). When in range a tacyhon beam depletes their facing shields, my cannons hammer down the rest and expose the hull. At this point I activate my tractor beam, to hold them in place and deal light damage over time, as I come about and fire a full spread from my aft torpedo launcher, striking massive damage against their hull.

This is Worf. Worf is displeased.

One of my fellow captains chooses a different, but equally effective approach. He is currently in command of an Excalibur class Cruiser, fore and aft torpedoes, several phaser banks, but not as nimble. Because of the firing arc of phaser banks, there is one specific way to broadside an enemy where both fore and aft banks overlap and can deal near continual punishment to shields. Once his enemy's shields are down, a quick turn and a few torpedo spreads is all it takes to finish them off.

U.S.S. Akkan. Does not play well with others.

Both of these tactics have Star Trek written all over them. I can recall scenes in films and episodes where nearly all of those manoeuvres have been done, which is what makes them all the more satisfying to do in game!

Space combat demonstrates that the three ship classes clearly occupy the same character types as the three Character classes. Escorts are focused damage dealers, Cruisers can take the punishment and manage threat control whilst Science Ships heal allies, cripple enemy movements and bolster allied weapons.

I love this more than Ensign Crusher loves stupid jumpers.

Your space combat abilities come from a wonderful system of Bridge Officers (or BOFFs). Each ship has slots for Tactical, Engineering and Science BOFFs, with each class of ship favouring one over the other two in numbers. My Escort has two tactical, one engineering and one science. These BOFFs are recruited or bought during the game and serve as your bridge crew during space combat. They are also able to accompany you on ground missions by joining your away team. As you progress in rank you increase the number of BOFFs you can have at any time. When completing missions, destroying enemies and achieving certain objectives you earn XP for your own progression but also BOFFXP, which is used to increase the abilities of your BOFFs. Once you have spent a sufficient amount of BOFFXP on an officer, you can choose to spend resources to promote them. When promoted, a BOFF gains access to the next tier of abilities, both space and ground. This added an element of loyalty and a real essence of being a proper Star Fleet crew.

Ground Combat

Ever played Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2? Well, ground combat is like that on a quality-free diet. It has limited FPS appeal, awkward ability cooldowns, over-zealous AI that want's you and ONLY YOU dead RIGHT NOW, despite being out numbered 5-to-1 and having all four of my away team shooting the crap out of it. For me, it's mostly a case of "Fine, STO, I will do your 9000th corridor rail shooter-esque away team mission, so long as you let me back into space in the next ten minutes."

Flee! Flee from my poorly-executed combat mechanics!....Or don't.

Sometimes the non-combat ground sections are just awful. For example, I went back in time to stop the Devidians from stealing a meteor (I think...I blew it up, close enough). I met Bones, and he was a dick. The guy made me do the most ridiculous fetch quest. First, I had to find a Barmaid, then she told me to go talk to Bones again. So back I went, across the map, to find him. He then told me I needed to make a Nerve Tonic to calm the Barmaid's nerves so she would tell me what transpired before my away team and I arrived. Back I go to the Barmaid to give her a Nerve Tonic, which I didn't have, and she directs me to the Bar. Here, I am presented with five tiers of choices regarding the composition of said Tonic. Not a clue. Not a bloody clue. So I made one, gave it to the Barmaid, bitch doesn't like honey. Well fuck. Space bees make shit honey, apparently. So back I trotted to Bones who proceeded to tell me everything the Barmaid liked about drinks. And I mean everything. I had to start taking notes to get it all down. Eventually I sort of had an idea of what she would want, so I went back to the Bar to make the drink. Needless to say, she didn't like it. I had to repeat the note-taking exercise four times. I wanted to kill Bones.

Even the Ghost-Busting missions didn't make up for it.

PVP Combat

Don't even bother. The Federation-on-Federation training exercises are barely running, due to lack of interest, and when they are there's always some uber-rank with a plasma mini-gun wasting everyone else. The space combat stuff is basically the same, no one understands how to work as a team so no one survives very long.

The fact that you can't even unlock a Klingon character slot until level 25 means there is about an 80:20 split in players in favour of Federation, which means PVP never, ever gets going.

On the rare occasion that PVE has worked, it's been pretty cool. We hunted a Romulan fleet, lead by a ship similar in design to the Scimitar seen in Star Trek: Nemesis. It didn't resemble it for long:

Kaboom.

Bad Stuff

The game features an in-game shop, the C-Store, where actual money with the Queen on it and everything can be exchanged for C-Credits. These are used to purchase new ships, equipment and even pets to follow you around, something that I absolutely cannot understand people spending money on. This in-game currency worth real money irritates me. It's clearly another way to continue to make money from a product, especially since it's now FTP, and I understand that. However, I'm not paying £15 to find out what the hell is inside every single one of the 56 Cardassian Lockboxes I have sitting in my inventory. It might be driving me insane.

A dog is for life. But apparently not for Sulu.

During peak hours the game has started to become a tad sticky but not unplayable. This is probably due to server strain, and for the first time a few days ago I was asked to wait in a queue before there was room for me to play. It took a full nine days of FTP status for that to happen, about 9 times as long as it took DCUO, thank god. Minor issues really, the servers will calm down after a few weeks.

Good Stuff

There are some great little things that I enjoy about this game. It patches a little bit every loading screen, something which all MMOs may do, but DC Universe Online certainly did not. That bastard made me wait for nearly 20 minutes every time I wanted to play it. However, the game does take forever to load certain maps, most probably due to heavy usage.

Some time and effort has clearly gone into making direct and indirect connections to the various iterations of Star Trek. Admiral Janeway, Ambassador Picard, Spock, Kirk, Sisco they're all in the game somewhere, mostly just by name. I get warm and fuzzy feelings when someone references an episode that I remember. Hell, you can even replicate Feline Supplement 74, the cat food Data gives to Spot. I do love attention to detail like that.

Overall

Yep, nice space combat, ground combat that I can deal with til it goes away coupled with rewarding progression and a highly detailed universe; all good things. Not much to say visually, it's alright on the ground but nothing special, much better in space however. It's an MMO, so longevity is usually a case of money but seeing as it's FTP I don't really see an end to my enjoyment. I'll take breaks, but I feel certain I'll come back to this again in the future.

Go get it, it's free for Kirk's sake!

A Final Point

Y'know Star Wars? The most popular franchise in the history of ever? Well, I'm nearly bored of it. There are so many games based on, admittedly, an excellent universe, that there's very little new ground left to cover. Unless you start making games based upon the colossal amount of fan fictions and other "novellas" based on the lives of the characters, characters children, children's children, pets, accountants etc. and I really don't want another Star Wars Christmas Special fiasco to be frank. Which is why this game appeals to me so much. It's a relatively new universe for me. Yes, I've seen large chunks of TNG and I'm currently re-watching all of Voyager, but I'm in no way saturated with Picardicles, not by a long shot. It's this freshness coupled with highly enjoyable space combat and rewarding gameplay that has stolen over 50 hours from me in the last 15 days. Thoroughly recommend to all MMO fans as well as anyone who's always wanted to play an MMO but morally objects to paying more than once for a game. Also, Star Trek fans of all sorts.