Star Trek Online Hand-On

Over the weekend the Penny Arcade Expo was held, which is essentially a celebration of video games. As part of that Star Trek Online demo was available for play and Joystiq.com did a write-up here.

Overall they felt the game "has managed to create a flawlessly adapted interactive extension of the show" that Star Trek fans will love. The demo offered a look at the play control with the space combat system that has an added layer of strategy due to elements that is true to Star Trek. For example energy and shield management ("divert power to forward shields") is a part of the combat. There are "thrusters on full", photon torpedoes, phasers (with own range and targeting arc depending on location on the ship).

Abilities such as draining enemy's shields, fire volley of torpedoes and more seems to be provided by fellow crew members on the bridge of the ship. These characters are also customizable and can follow you down for ground side exploration. Ground side combat techniques include phaser fights and melee attacks with some assist from crewmates that provide healing and buffs but how your teams work is up to you. If AI-controlled characters are not cutting it, they can be swapped out with player controlled avatars. Of note is missions are called "episodes" for the game. It seems the game has a lot of potential but it is still a year out at least so no telling what additional fun content will be added.