Star Trek bonanza!
This upcoming year promises to be a bonanza year for Star Trek fans. Not only is a new movie in the works, but Cryptic Studios is developing a new MMO based on the Next Generation Star Trek era.
Let’s cover the movie first. Star Trek, the movie, is slated to be released in May of this year. It’s a prequel and pseudo-remake of the original TV series. The movie stars a young Captain Kirk (played by Chris Pine) and Spock (played by Zachary Quinto). I’m not that much of a movie buff, but honestly, I’ve never heard of either of these two. The director is JJ Abrams, and him, I have heard of.
I’m actually very interested in seeing how this will turn out. Imagine giving a well known franchise to a director and giving him enough creative control to essentially reboot it, telling the story as he sees it without being bound to some hard coded continuity. I wish that the Star Wars franchise would be given similar treatment and that some young creative director could make a Star Wars movie without stuffing it full of obnoxious CG characters and wooden dialogue. Given that the cast is mostly unknown, the movie is probably banking on the uniqueness of the reboot idea and the fact that there are legions of Star Trek fans out there that will go out and see any Star Trek movie good or bad.
The screenshots and the trailer from the film both look pretty good. Chris Pine looks like Kirk, though I’m not really sold on Zachary Quinto for Spock…yet. Take a gander…
From left to right: unknown crewman, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), expendable redshirt, Dr. McCoy, Sulu and Uhara
Not exactly digging this verison of Spock.
The ships from what I've seen of them look hawt!
Switching gears now to the game…
In late 2009, most likely sometime in 2010, Cryptic Studios will be releasing the Star Trek Online MMO. As you may know, Cryptic took over this IP after Perpetual Entertainment ran into significant cashflow problems. Cryptic is the original developer of the City of Heroes franchise and also currently developing Champions-Online. After this announcment was made, reaction was guardedly optimistic. Cryptic *did* put together a fantastic initial effort in creating City of Heroes, but they also made a number of rookie mistakes that left some fans angry at the development, especially lead designer, Jack Emmert aka Statesman.
Hopefully, Cryptic has learned its lessons as it looks to satisfy an extremely loyal and somewhat fanatical base of Star Trek fans. Do the game right, and Star Trek Online could be a huge money maker. Do it badly, and players will herald the game as the second coming of Star Wars Galaxies.
Cryptic does seem to be on the right direction offering every player to be the captain of their own ship. Cryptic makes it clear that just because you’re a captain, that doesn’t mean you’re also not an engineer, doctor or weapon’s officer. So, if you have a frevent desire to play a communications officer, you can knock yourself out. Further, just because you’re the Starfleet equivalent of a shrimp boat captain that doesn’t mean you’re qualified to command one of Starfleet’s ships of the line. Such high level commands only come after some significant experience. This design decision neatly gets around the Jedi problem faced in Star Wars Galaxies (everyone wants to be a Jedi but not everyone can). While some players may bemoan the inability to form crews of human players, Cryptic’s decision is better in the long run. I mean, it’s great if you’re captain, but what if you get assigned as a redshirted security guard?
The only gripe I have with the game are the visuals. The ships and scenes in outer space look fantastic. The character models, especially the faces…well, they’re not my taste, but maybe after enough beer I’ll get used to looking at them.
A fight against the Borg!
A starship in dry dock
I gotta admit, I'm not digging how the races look like. Hopefully, they'll see some changes before live.
Are you looking forward to a Star Trek filled 2009? If so, sound off and let me know how much.
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