STO: PC Gamer Article

It's probably a fair assumption that I've been a bit hard on STO in the past few weeks, mainly due to the micro-transaction arguments. I've little patience or respect for a company who tries to squeeze every last penny they can out of their fan base. Unfortunately for us, that's not going to change, it's a business after all, someone has to pay the "bills".

The latest PC Gamer article for STO has brightened my outlook on the game somewhat. Maybe it was how the author retold his experience or maybe because of the little tidbits of information we got.

One thing that has been in the back of my mind since STO was announced was how they planned to implement party play in space, in most instances, we usually saw 1-2 ships battling it out during the TV show but judging by the article, having different class captains will have its benefits

"Cryptic's Norway came to my rescue, nailing it in place with a tractor beam while I rounded on it with my heavy frontal weaponry. But by this point the Steamrunners shields were critical. The Norway captain's science skill came in handy again, as he used his own power to boost her shields"

To me that sounds fantastic, teamwork at it's best. I expected that I would be spending the majority of the game questing solo but according to PC Gamer, some of the Episode missions will require a full team which is a great thing, as much as I like to solo in MMO's, needing to group and socialise is an important part of the genre.

Next PC Gamer got a look at the Away Missions (ground combat) section of STO. Not surprisingly this was probably the most disappointing section. Story wise for this specific mission it sounded brilliant, chasing a Klingon through an alien planet only to find the Guardian of Forever that whisks them into the past where they have to protect the 23rd century Enterprise from destruction and eventually meet with the Klingon in a final showdown.

Gameplay wise I've very worried.

According to PC Gamer this mission was very linear. This was the major thing that I was worried about for away missions, in space you see an entire planet but you can only visit one small location like a cavern or town which its only purpose is to get from point A to point B.

Cryptic have mentioned a few times that they planned on making the away missions more action orientated but not twitch based. According to PC gamer there are no cooldowns on attacks, you click to fire, alt fire and melee attack. I'm not really sure what to make of this and I plan on waiting to see it in action before I make any judgements.

If the majority of the missions come across as well as this one did for PC Gamer I think the game still might have a fighting chance.