Most MMOs, if they allow it at all, make changing your avatar’s appearance a time consuming and possibly expensive task. In Star Trek Online, a trip to in-game tailors on any space station allow you to change everything from your uniform, to your hairstyle, to the smallest detail of your appearance. You can store up to five appearances at once which you can swap with a keystroke at will.

No other MMO offers that.

In my Vulcan engineer’s long career in Starfleet, the years and the burdens of command have taken her from the fresh enthusiasm of a newly minted ensign to the grizzled veteran of years of campaigns against the Breen, the Borg, the Devidians, the Romulans, the Klingons and all the other myriad enemies of the Federation.

Thanks to the tailor system, not only has her appearance changed — making her more distinguished with age and authority — but all her previous appearances are saved to my local hard drive. I can load them up at any tailor.

If your characters are more than just manikins on which to drape raid gear with increasingly bizarre shoulderpads, you might like what you can do with them in Star Trek Online.

Bonus feature: You can do the same with every member of your bridge crew and away teams as well. Want to make your crew change from the young crew of the original Star Trek series to the aged geriatric crew of Star Trek V?

That can happen.

(By the way, I designed the uniforms T’pral is wearing).

None of us was happy about the way we left Gianthold Tor; expert at getting through the dungeon and killing the Gatekeeper, unable to kill the three dragons at the end. We’d all gained a level since we left the Tor, though, and the Harbingers of Madness gear was a literal game changer for most of us.

The rewards for grinding Gianthold Tor for rare dragon scales are not that great, given the effort involved. I estimate it would take killing a dragon thirty times in order to get enough scales to make a piece of armor. We were never going to spend half a year farming this instance.

But the dragons had to die. Last night we returned to Gianthold Tor and we killed the dragons.

All the dragons have a giant protector, and both dragon and giant have to die within seconds of each other. For this, we split the group. Spode tanked the dragon, Ulan the giant, and Gleek and I would switch from one to the other to keep their health balanced as we took them down.

We’d all acquired special cold resist gear when we were here before. We suited up, potioned up and buffed up, went in, and died pretty fast. Came back, changed our positioning a little — dead dragon. Between the four of us, no dragon scales.

Next up: the blue dragon, whose power was lightning. Since this was said to be the easiest of the three dragons, we’d tried this one a few times before. The room gradually becomes more electrified as the fight drags on. If you can’t kill everything in two minutes, the room itself will kill you.

Again, first time failure. Second time we kept the clerics near to the wall, outside the worst of the electricity, and won. One blue dragon scale between the four of us.

Gleek challenged us to kill the black dragon in his room full of acid pools the first time. This trick requires keeping the clerics and everyone else on one of the islands floating in the acid pools. And we did it — first try. Two black dragon scales among the four of us.

Three dragon scales out of twelve chances = 25% chance at a scale. If I’d need 20 black dragon scales for some decent light armor, I could expect to kill the dragon 80 times (on normal mode). I’d get some scales from other people in the group in trade for the ones I wouldn’t need, of course, but that’s still going to be a significant number of kills required.

We’re happy we killed the dragons, but I don’t think any of us see any reason to go back.

Infected (Space) is very simple. There’s only one thing you have to do. And that is all focus and kill the nanite spheres and probes when they pop. That’s all. Infected (Space) is a test of teamwork. If someone goes off on their own, the optional is all but lost.

There are two optional objectives. Complete the entire task force in fifteen minutes, and don’t allow any nanite sphere or nanite probe to heal one of the transformers. If any nanite probe or nanite sphere gets close enough to heal a transformer, the optional is instantly lost.

The strategy is pretty simple. If you see a nanite sphere or nanite probe, kill it. One ship can easily take the probes, but unlike Khitomer Accord, they don’t come alone. They come mixed with tougher nanite spheres and very tough sphere escorts. Additionally, random spheres come to defend the transformers.

Kill the transformers in order. Trying to kill both at once will launch an unkillable wave of spheres and probes.

There’s a lot of different strategies to winning Infected, especially the elite version, where the transformer guard spheres are replaced by cubes. I’m going to write down the way it’s normally done in normal mode.

You start facing a tactical cube threatening a Federation starbase, Starbase 82. Like all tactical cubes, it has very strong shields, strong hull, strong weapons, and heavy plasma torpedoes that can take down an unprotected ship in one hit. It has two sphere guards which will try to tractor you so the cube can kill you.

It’s pretty annoying.

Once the cube and the spheres are dead, move to the transformer marked with a (2). It is healed by four generators. Kill the guardian sphere (or cube in elite), the generators and then the transformer.

While this is going on, nanite spheres, nanite probes and regular spheres will arrive through the gateway. Break off and kill them. Seriously. Continuing to damage the transformer may cause another wave of probes and spheres. If any of the nanite spheres or probes heal the transformer, it will instantly lose the optional. Additionally, since they are healing damage to the transformer, it will take longer to finish the mission which means more waves of spheres until you have half a dozen circling around.

So when you see a sphere or probe while you’re killing a transformer, take a break and help kill them. Position yourself in front of the transformer. Burn it down. When enemies come, swivel 90 degrees, kill them, turn back and continue the assault.

With that down, go to the transformer on the right side (3) and do the same thing.

With the transformers down, a tactical cube will arrive to guard the gateway. Both the cube and the gateway must die to get the optional. The cube takes longer to kill and does more damage, so I would kill the cube first, then kill the gateway. Some suggest killing the cube right at the gateway, so that the cube will damage the gateway, but that’s pretty hard to arrange, and it puts ships in range of the gate’s guns. Getting on the far side of the cube keeps everyone out of the range of the gate guns.

If everyone works together to kill the adds as they spawn, this special task force comes down to raw damage. Unlike Cure and Khitomer Accord (walkthrough still to come), nobody has to do a special job, Just kill enemies, then kill the gates, repeat until finished.

The “Reckoning” is a special mode you can get into where you become extremely deadly and suck the Fate right out of your fallen enemies. Just in case you were wondering what that was. It’s one of the more distinctive bits of a fantasy RPG that Electronic Arts hopes will be compelling glimpse into the world of Amalur for eager fans awaiting its unveiling as a fully-fledged MMO.

“Reckoning”, developed by Big Huge Games, was originally going to be an RPG with entirely different lore. 38 Studios bought BHG and “Reckoning” as a platform for the assets, lore, and setting for the world R.A.Salvatore and Todd McFarlane developed. A world of deep fantasy, innate magic and twisted beauty.

You wake up on a pile of rotting corpses, in “Reckoning”. As your lifeless corpse is being carted to the incinerator, the gnome corpse handlers discuss the finer points of your well-preserved carcass, giving you (the player) an opportunity to customize your character and set your name “for the records”.

But you aren’t actually dead. Well, not any more. The Well of Souls, an experimental machine, has plucked your spirit from the aether and given you a new body. This trick has never actually resulted in a living being — until now. You’re the first. And now everyone wants to kill you, unless you put your faith in some gnomes.

I recall an interview with R.A. Salvatore where he mentioned that there was finally a game that bothered to give an explanation as to why your character could bounce back so easily from death again and again. But single player RPGs don’t generally do that. You die, it’s game over, load your last save. It’s clear from this that Reckoning truly is meant to be a prelude to the larger game yet to come.

The tutorial equips you and instructs you in the arts of the three main archetypes (Fates), Warrior (Might), Rogue (Finesse) and Mage (Sorcery), though these are by no means set in stone, and you can change them at any time by changing your gear or by choosing a new Fate, once you have unlocked the ability. Fates are unlocked by purchasing or upgrading abilities on the talent tree when you level. You can choose to stick with one line, or mix two or even all three fates in any way you like. Each combination has its own unique powers.

I chose the Finesse tree (mostly) for the demo, though a bug in the talent tree UI had me spending points in a tree I didn’t expect. Even though I went with Finesse armor and weapons, nothing prevented me from keeping a fire staff ready and casting a spell or two.

BHG only gives you a couple of hours to play the demo before it kicks you out. In that time I completed a few quests, killed dozens of monsters and explored two dungeons. I also unlocked a lot of items for use in the retail game and in Mass Effect 3. You get a Reckoning-theme weapon in ME3 for running out the clock in the demo… so that’s something to watch for.

I went through the demo wondering where I’d seen this game before. Then it hit me: this game looks so much like Sony Online Entertainment’s Free Realms. The PC models are more realistic (if that word has any meaning in a fantasy title), but the world itself — I’d spent time there.

Character Creation

Your character can choose from four races — which correspond roughly to what would be human, barbarian, high elf and wood elf in other RPGs — but aside from a point or two in a different place in your starting talent tree, your race doesn’t make a material difference in the story. My character, a wood elf, came across a human who claimed to be on an errand for powerful, mystical, rarely seen Fae. Considering that the “Fae” would turn out to be wood elf bandits, same race as me, you’d think that human would have taken one look at me, muttered a curse beneath his breath, and simply returned home that very moment.

Combat

Combat is a hybrid between the click to target and you hit what you aim at methods. The game will pick out the likeliest target automatically based on which way you are facing, your weapon and distance to target and that will be your target, even if it means it has to swivel your character to point off screen and attack something you hadn’t seen. Instead of the enemy in front of you.

You can and should dodge enemy attacks, or pull out your shield to block. Holding up a shield while the enemy does a 1-2-3 hit and then unleashing a melee barrage while they recover is the way to win any battle. Kill enough and you can unleash the “reckoning”, which puts you slightly out of phase with the world, sends everything in slow motion, and lets you just become a killing machine, ending with a showy finishing move (that can be enhanced through a quick time event; watch for it).

Players can learn combo attacks and dodge out of the way of almost any attack.

All characters can block with a shield, cast spells or enter stealth. Spending points in the appropriate trees enhances these. Choosing appropriate fates even more.

Reckoning’s version of a stealth archer is pretty far up the Fate list. I like playing stealthy roguely types, the hallmark of the Rogue fate. Sneak up behind someone fast enough and wait for the UI to signal the special Backstab move. Nigh instant death. That works if you can get behind them before they see you, anyway. Mobs typically are positioned so that they are staring right at you as you enter the room, so stealth wasn’t that useful for me. The higher level Fates seem to address the problem, eventually, but you’ll want to be relying on other talents until stealth becomes useful.

Questing

I haven’t seen a Kill Ten X quest in the demo; all the quests further the story in some way (the dark elf Tuatha are invading the land in order to destroy the Well of Souls and just cause general mischief). Or introduce the land and the lore. Escort quests seem to be an early favorite. I also got a “collect ten lost things” quest, so, generally, Reckoning doesn’t break any new ground in questing.

The Pros

The developers of BHG have definitely done a good job with the assets of Amalur, telling the story, introducing the races, the gods, the magic system and the lore. Quest objectives are marked on a map, fast travel is available, difficulty can be adjusted and the graphics are low fidelity enough that it should (should) “run on a toaster”.

The combat closely resembles the hybrid combat found in RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons Online. The armor and weapons look appropriate and impressive. The “fate” system is an intriguing way of implementing classes, of which there are many.

Though as the player is unique in the world in having no fate and therefore being able to pick and choose their fate, the implication is that everyone else in the world is born with their eventual class pre-determined by their unchangeable fate.

The giving and continuing of quests using in-game cinematics might be a pro or a con, depending on how you feel about them. I’m leaving it in the pro side. It adds to the atmosphere of the game and they can be skipped.

The game can be played, on the PC, with either mouse or keyboard or a game controller. The UI shifts between the two control methods based on which one you most recently used, moment to moment. It’s actually rather neat.

The Cons

I couldn’t play the game at first; I asked for help and was told to bring down my graphics settings. That worked, but there were still graphical glitches elsewhere in the game. Presumably all these will be sorted out by the time the game goes live (and I have read they are already fixed; we’re running old code in the demo).

Rogues seem a little weaker than the other main paths in the demo.

The game is, graphically, flat and decidedly old school. This could be because I had to lower the graphics to get the game to run or a deliberate choice, but it doesn’t stand up well to modern RPGs like Skyrim or Dragon Age II. Again, this is entirely subjective, and you might well prefer this style. The most popular MMORPG in the world uses it. Can’t argue with eleven million players.

While an online connection doesn’t seem to be required, it is necessary to be connected to log achievements and so on.

As in many newer games released both on consoles and the PC, the UI strongly favors a game controller. Looking at inventory, equipping gear, changing weapons and spells and so on all require navigating through menus. Hopefully this will be modded out as Skyrim’s similar design decision allowed.

Buy/No Buy?

If you’re eager for a peek at 38 Studio’s “Copernicus”, which shares a setting with Reckoning, this has to be a day 1 buy for you. If you’re after a fun RPG with a good story, Reckoning will likely fill the bill.

Last year my single player RPGs were Dragon Age II, Dungeon Siege III and Elder Scrolls V (Skyrim). Sequels all. Reckoning starts a new franchise in an expansive world. It’s no Skyrim, but not every game has to be a Skyrim. It’s a clear sight better than DS3 and DA2, if you set aside Reckoning’s relatively shoddy graphics (which, again, may be a bug that has already been fixed).

I’m giving it a cautious recommendation.