Posts Tagged ‘Star Trek’

Star Trek Online: Latest Screenshots

By Chief Oddball on February 28th, 2010 at 12:25 am

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I last posted about the massively multiplayer PC game Star Trek Online during the open beta phase. The game hit retail release in early February, and now that it’s been several weeks since then, what’s the current state of the game? Am I still playing?

In fact, today was the first time I logged onto Star Trek Online in almost two weeks. I have Mass Effect to thank for this — as much as I love all things Trek, Mass Effect is simply a far superior sci-fi RPG in every conceivable way. But I like to bounce back and forth between my hobbies (and obsessions!), and because today was a Star Trek day in every other regard (hint hint), I decided to change things up and take a seat at the helm of my Constitution-class starship once more.

Star Trek Online has been steadily improving over time, and a number of the more irritating bugs have been fixed since I last ventured out into the Alpha Quadrant. Notably, my ship’s bridge officers are finally allowed to wear the custom Next Generation style uniforms that came with my Collector’s Edition of the game, so now we all look pretty spiffy as we tool around on those away missions. (Also, if you have the TOS-style uniforms, the “Roddenberry Special” miniskirts are now available to your female officers, for which I’m sure they’ll, ah, thank you.) There has also been a litany of gameplay enhancements, new missions, new ship designs and other errata that are detailed in much depth on the STO website. If you hate the lack of content on the Klingon side or have a beef with the overall gameplay mechanics, you’re going to continue to be disappointed — probably forever. But there it’s clear that Cryptic does keep improving and evolving the game as we go.

I’m still a lowly Lieutenant Grade 6, which essentially means I haven’t amounted to a hill of beans in the STO universe. Unlike two weeks ago, now I find myself surrounded by huge Galaxy and Sovereign-class ships as I fly through sector space, a grim reminder of the fact that tons of other players have leveled way, way past me while I was busy recruiting the galaxy’s best and brightest for Commander Shepard’s suicide mission. (Hey, the Normandy ain’t gonna fly herself, no matter what EDI might tell you. I make no apologies.)

While I haven’t yet spent enough time to offer a more in-depth review of the new content and the other enhancements that lurk just beneath the surface, I did take a bunch of screenshots that might give you a glimpse into the exciting and ever-changing world of Star Trek Online. If you have a soft spot for the original Enterprise as I do, some of these shots may be a real feast your eyes.

U.S.S. Songkhla (NCC-104750-A)

Tugboat Duty: Towing a Wrecked Freighter

Entering Standard Orbit While Deftly Avoiding the Asteroids

Ensign Sansanee and Captain Harvie on the Bridge

Not Exactly an Ideal Vacation Spot

The Constitution-Class Ship's Unique Blue Phasers

Sansanee, More Interested in a Tribble than the Mission

Ready to Repel the Klingon Invasion of Vulcan

It's Drive-In Movie Time at Starbase One!

My Recreation of a Classic TOS Orbit Shot

Second Star to the Right, and Straight On Till Morning

Lending a Hand to a Disabled Crewman

If It's Borg, Shoot It!

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Review: Star Trek: The Original Series (Blu-Ray)

By Chief Oddball on February 27th, 2010 at 11:13 pm

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Star Trek TOS Season 3 Blu-Ray Set

For my birthday this year, my friends Pooch and Reaper gifted me with the Season 1 and 3 boxed sets of Star Trek: The Original Series on Blu-ray disc. Since this series (hereinafter referred to as TOS) was perhaps my first television love, and sparked an obsessive fanaticism which hasn’t waned for a minute since, I thought it appropriate to post my impressions of these all-new, high-definition episodes. They are, after all, the most significant reissue of TOS yet.

Since the moment the final episode aired in 1969, the original Star Trek became one of those iconic shows that has seen release on just about every media format ever conceived by man. Over the years, I’ve owned episodes on Betamax, VHS and DVD, each release getting progressively better — the VHS tapes added preview trailers, the initial DVD releases added remastered picture and sound, etc. The Blu-ray discs, however, add more than any of the others, for they contain the remastered episodes with all-new effects shots created by CBS Digital and rendered in high definition. This enhanced version of TOS has, amongst Trek fandom, become known as TOS-R.

What CBS has done here is monumental. Almost every effects shot in the series — ship flybys, phaser combat, etc. — has been reproduced digitally. This effort was apparently sparked by the format of the original effects composites, which were apparently low-resolution and could not be scaled up to high definition without massive quality loss. CBS’s solution was to recreate the effects entirely, and what we end up with are some (mostly) pretty impressive renders that add a whole new level of depth. Every time you see the Enterprise on screen, it’s like seeing her with a totally new set of eyes. Even several minor composite shots have been replaced, like some of the hand phaser effects and what-not.

The Blu-ray discs bring to life not only the new effects shots, but the old tried-and-true footage of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the gang as well. TOS has never looked better — or sounded better, either, thanks to the new 7.1 surround sound mix. While watching the episode “Wink of an Eye” on the big screen earlier tonight, I was stunned by the level of detail that’s visible. At times, this even had the effect of cluing me into the crummy paint jobs and slapdash construction of the set pieces, which made me chuckle because I’ve never noticed them despite years and years of watching this same footage over and over.

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Impressions: Star Trek Online (Open Beta)

By Chief Oddball on January 23rd, 2010 at 12:27 am

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Visiting strange new worlds

Star Trek and video games. Like many geeks, they’re two of my first loves, forged in my early years when bright colors and awe-inspiring, imagination-stoking stories were all I needed to be truly happy. So it should be no surprise that every time these two elements come together, I sit up and take notice. Usually I find myself underwhelmed, but today I’m positively aglow. And you, dear reader, whether you like it or not, are about to discover why.

For the past week, I’ve been participating in the open beta test of Star Trek Online, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) from Cryptic Studios, makers of Champions Online and City of Heroes. If those titles don’t exactly inspire confidence, you’re not alone. Maybe, being a hardcore Trekker, I’m more forgiving than most — but it’s my opinion that Cryptic has created something amazing in Star Trek Online, something the cosmos has badly needed for a good number of years: a decent Star Trek video game.

In fact, STO is more than mere decency would imply. In the short couple of weeks since the beta began, I’ve watched it evolve from a rough, buggy and somewhat small-feeling universe to a huge, open-universe game with real polish and real potential — even with the bugs that remain to be fixed. Every Star Trek fan’s dream, whether you like the classic original series, the iconic adventures of Picard’s Enterprise or the dark days of the Dominion War, is represented faithfully by at least one slice of Star Trek Online. It’s enough to make a grown man imitate phaser sound effects while flying his very own replica of the Enterprise about the galaxy.

Because it’s an MMORPG, Star Trek Online is different than your average singleplayer-centric game. It’s a huge open world, a persistent virtual universe that’s constantly running on a farm of servers 24/7, changing and evolving whether you’re part of it or not. You share this game world with all of the other players, who are exploring space, getting into battles and engaging in commerce at the same time you are. Although there aren’t as many opportunities for you to actually play with others as there are in most MMOs, there are still lots of ways to team up and tackle missions, attack the enemy and defend Federation starbases with tons of other people from around the world.

Being a somewhat anti-social person, I’ve never had a real hankering to play popular MMOs like World of Warcraft or EVE Online; usually I would rather explore a game’s virtual universe my myself. Additionally, I was never really a fan of the fantasy setting (dragons, orcs, wizards and so forth) on which most MMOs are based. Star Trek Online therefore presents a unique opportunity for me to enter the world of MMORPGs on my own terms, using a setting both familiar and welcome. And the fact that solo play seems to be rather commonplace — even hard to avoid — in STO only made it easier for me to give it a try.

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Hollywood Epiphanies

By Chief Oddball on February 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

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I had a couple of “holy cow!” moments yesterday. You know the type — like when you suddenly realize that one of your favorite songs as a child was recorded by an artist you “discovered” later in your life. In my case, I learned something new about two classic movies I’ve always liked.

Yesterday I was watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine during supper. Afterwards, I saw my TiVo HD was recording Dirty Harry in high definition, so I segued into watching it. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that the Scorpio Killer character in Dirty Harry was terribly familiar. His voice, to be specific, sounded exactly like the voice of one of my favorite Cardassian characters from DS9, Elim Garak. In fact, the DS9 episode I’d just watched during dinner had featured Garak quite prominently.

At first I thought that the two actors couldn’t possibly be the same guy, because nearly 25 years had passed between Dirty Harry and DS9. The actor playing Garak wasn’t that old…was he? Honestly, it’s tough to tell beneath all that Cardassian make-up. Then again, just how young was the actor playing Scorpio, anyway? Well, in cases like this, there’s only one way to answer all questions, silence all quibbles and settle all bets: Check the Internet Movie Database.

Sure enough, the Scorpio Killer was indeed played by Andrew Robinson, the same man who later played Elim Garak in every season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In fact, his role in Dirty Harry back in 1971 was one of his very first acting jobs. Fascinating!

The other “Hollywood epiphany” I had yesterday was when I discovered the 1984 sci-fi flick Runaway on TiVo’s list of upcoming HD movies. I remember when I was around six years old, I used to bug my mom to rent that movie for me almost every time we went to the video store. It’s totally ’80s cheese/camp sci-fi, but hey, I was a kid.

Well, I did a little poking around on the all-knowing, aforementioned IMDB about the film, and was astonished to learn that it was written and directed by none other than Michael Crichton, one of my favorite authors of medical/techo thrillers. It then occurred to me that, when I was a kid, I used to love movies that were based on Crichton properties — The Andromeda Strain, Runaway, Jurassic Park, et al — before I had even learned who Crichton was. Guess it’s no wonder I like the guy’s books.

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