'Star Trek Online' video game preview

(Credit: Atari)

It’s done well at the movies, on TV and in philosophy, but “Star Trek” has never really translated well to video games. Aside from the “Elite Force” series of first-person shooters (which weren’t very Trekkie) gaming has long had trouble bringing Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi universe to life.

Cryptic Studios is attempting to change that with “Star Trek Online,” a “World of Warcraft”-esque massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for PCs that Atari will publish on February 2. In it, players take command of their own spaceships, engage in space battles, and explore strange new worlds in the “Trek” universe.

You'll even get to hang with Spock, or actually Spocks, as the game features voice work by the actors Leonard Nimoy—who provides opening narration—and Zachary Quinto, as an emergency medical hologram.

We spoke to the game’s Lead Designer, Al Rivera, to find out how “Trek Online” plans to boldly go where no game has gone before.

For those who don’t know what a MMORPG is, or how you play one, how would you describe the game?
In a regular game, you play by yourself or maybe with one other person. But in “Star Trek Online,” you can play with thousands of other people online simultaneously, and it gives you a chance to live in the “Star Trek” universe. For example, you could hang out with your friends at Quark’s Bar, and then all head out into a battle together. Part of the drawn of an MMO is that you get to play with your friends, and can meet new ones. There are people who work here who’ve met their wives playing MMOs. It’s an interesting social experiment, in my opinion.

When in “Star Trek” history is the game set?
It takes place in 2409, which is about thirty years after [the 2002 movie] “Star Trek: Nemesis” and two decades after the start of the newest “Star Trek” movie, when the Romulan home world was destroyed and Spock went back in time. But in our game, the old timeline has continued, so Romulus is no more and Spock is gone.

The universe in our game is actually a much darker place than it was in “Nemesis” or at the end of “Deep Space 9.” The Klingons are no longer allies with the Federation, and it is now a time of war between us and them.

Do you play the game as a human in the Federation?
You can. There are dozens of different races you play as. You do have to play on either the Federation or the Klingon side, but on the Federation side you can play as humans, Vulcans and Ferengis. The Klingon side includes the Gorn, the Nausicaan and the Orions.

In the game, everyone gets to captain their own ship. Does that mean you’ll also be able to customize your ship, buy a bigger one or command your own fleet?
Yes, to everything but the part about commanding a fleet. When the game begins you’ll go through a tutorial, then you’re a Lieutenant and the captain of a light cruiser—along the lines of the ship that Khan had in [the 1982 movie] “The Wrath of Khan.” And every ship is customizable. They have a number of weapons slots, depending on the class of ship, and they have a number of bridge officer stations. Bridge officers can be engineers, science officers or tactical officers, and they have different abilities.

Then, when you get promoted to Lieutenant Commander, you get a choice between three different ships: a science vessel kind of like the ship from [the TV show] “Star Trek Voyager,” an escort like the Defiant from “Deep Space 9,” or a cruiser, which is what the Enterprise was.

Ship captains in “Star Trek” still have to answer to the Federation or the Klingon High Council or some other governing body. Is that how players get missions?
That is one way. But this is a game about exploration, so you don’t have to do those missions if you don’t want to. If you want to just cruise around the galaxy, exploring planets, you can. Or if you want to join in on a battle, you can do that as well.

I’m not sure if anyone would still be around, given the timeline, but will any characters from the various “Trek” movies or TV shows be in the game?
I’m not going to give away who, but I can promise that you’ll see a lot of people’s relatives. You might run into a grown-up version of Molly O’Brien, the daughter of Miles and Keiko O’Brien from “Deep Space 9,” or some familiar Romulans or Vulcans, since Romulans and Vulcans live for a long time.

Lastly, have you built a fail-safe into the game to prevent the universe from being over run by Tribbles?
Ha! Well, there are Tribbles in the game, and they will multiply, so we’ll see what happens.