With games, I seem to be at a constant state of standing on the edge, looking into the body of water below, considering the plunge. The problem is that I must only be standing on one foot while doing so, because a gentle push is all it ever takes.

Twitter is usually one of the pushers. Looking over the occasional flood of comments made by the people I follow can lead to money becoming suddenly withdrawn from my bank account. It doesn’t help if I’m already giving the topic of the conversation any consideration. Towards the end of last week I had been giving thought to resubscribing to Star Trek Online. With the slew of episodic content that I still hadn’t experienced and the addition of the Foundry, there was quite a bit of game that I wanted to check out.

I know when an idea is planted in your head, it becomes something that can be recalled quickly, much like how RAM in a computer works. For example, I’ve been recently contemplating the purchase of a motorcycle, so now it seems like I’m seeing them for sale at the end of driveways everywhere I go. Something similar happened with Star Trek Online. I had given the game some thought one night and then as soon as the next time it came up in conversation on twitter, BOOM, I was locked in. Now, how many times do you think the game’s name had been spoken in the past few months while I wasn’t interested? I couldn’t tell you, but if it did, I’m sure I ignored it largely.

But now that I’m considering it….OH SNAP, OTHER PEOPLE ARE PLAYING STO?? SIGN ME UP!

Funny how the mind works…

But let me touch briefly on one of the missions I completed the other night dubbed “Cold Comfort.” It’s from the first season and those who have already partaken in it know it as the mission where you help injured Deferi and have to correctly interrogate a Breen prisoner. While I’ve heard some great things about season 2 and I can’t wait to check it out, I hate to say that this has been my favorite, most memorable time in STO so far. It’s not a long mission. You don’t ever fire a weapon in space or on the ground. You just talk and solve problems. Hey, kind of how Star Trek was for the majority of its episodes.

The kicker is, I failed the mission, and I still loved it. Now, of course I dropped the mission from my log and started it over, but the simple fact that by making one wrong choice in the interrogation process with the Breen had cost me the ability to proceed was awesome. It’s one thing to go through the game pew pewing at enemies on foot or blasting ships full of people out of the sky. It’s something else, something far more immersive to need to speak with people in need of your help and be required to make the correct choices to save their lives. It forces you to pay attention to the text. It forces you to become more involved with what’s going on in your surroundings. Most importantly, it made the game feel like Star Trek.

I hope there’s more missions like this to come.