I've been signed up for the closed beta for ages with the usual no response. *sigh*
I'm not a big fan of Cryptic, but I was pleasantly surprised with how fun Champions Online was over that free weekend a short time ago. Lots of flaws in the game, but I was having too much fun zapping things with my power armor to care. Spent hours in the power training room setting and resetting skills to try them out and match them to my character. It greatly amused me that you could focus on picking powers that matched the aesthetics of how you thought your character should fight and actually end up with a strong hero.
Anyway, the few ship specs they've released seem pretty interesting, and I like the idea of the three different ship classes requiring different tactics and officers to use effectively. The space battles are almost assuredly going to feel like ST, though I'm worried the game's popularity may be hurt by repeated admissions that they're going to be between slow, lumbering ships exploiting firing angles as today's gamers seem more entertained by zipping around at high speed.
The ground battles still look terrible from the little I've seen. Multiple modes on hand phasers and batt'leths being strong points, I was left pretty dismayed and confused when I heard an article reference a 'gatling phaser'. That's going to be awfully strange if nonstandard away team equipment becomes commonplace.
The recent news that ship bridges are in definitely bumps up my hopes for the game, but with The Old Republic on its way and WoW still stomping everything to death that dares rise up against it, I'm wary and afraid it won't last long.
