Champions Online
| Champions Online |
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Not a CoH KnockoffSo, this is the makers of City of Heroes re-branding of the super hero MMO, but it's not just a new box with all of the same mechanics as CoH. What's more, they've added some of the tweaks that has made WoW a success, i.e., many ways to make numbers go up. But not as obnoxious as Blizzard got with it. Within reasonable limits. They still have work to do on the economics of the game, and scaling crafted items a bit closer to what you find on drops (they're all too low, right now), but the character creation interface not only rivals CoH, but, I believe, surpasses it. Get it. You'll like it. Rating:  - Great Character Generation, Poor PlayThe character generation system is fun to play with, since you can customize your character's powers and appearance quite a lot. Unfortunately, after spending nearly an hour working on a character, you bring it out into a world where you must immediately avert an apocalypse! I chose to go with typical MMO controls, then tweaked them to what I'm used to. However, movement is clumsy and targeting opponents is difficult at best. I found my opponents were a mixed bag, some of which I could defeat easily, while others standing right next to them would wipe the floor with me. I also discovered that some of my characters were all attack and no defense, which meant that if I didn't defeat my opponents quickly, I was overwhelmed and died. When I finally managed to get through the beginning scenario, I was given the choice of averting one of two apocalypses. Since I had designed several characters, I sent some to one and others to the the second. The quests were pretty much variations of the ones I'd done in the beginning scenario, but I could now fly, in one way or another. I mentioned earlier that movement was clumsy. Let's just say that flying amplifies that clumsiness to near-uselessness in tight quarters. And since your fighting ability is penalized while you're flying, you turn it off just before you begin combat, so no move-by's or move-through's. CO's mission statement seems to be averting one apocalypse, then the next, then the next. Personally, I was hoping for a bit more of the "mean streets of the metropolis" approach. The overkill of these scenarios quickly became boring, to the point where I lost most of my interest in the game before a single one of my characters reached 10th level. CO is also still undergoing massive revisions by the developers, constantly tweaking powers and opponents, so the villain you fought yesterday and killed easily will today easily kill you instead. I have heard that the vast majority of this game can be handled solo, which I don't necessarily find a major drawback, but if all but the toughest supervillains can be defeated without a group, then there's not much incentive to join up with anyone else. The artificial team-ups of some scenario "group" quests is laughable, because just by being in the instance, you're a participant whether or not you even want to do any of its goals. The graphics are designed more to look like 4-color comics, but it's very easy to turn that feature off and get something that looks less garish. But it still looks overdone, so don't try to go for subtle looks when designing your character, because they disappear once you start playing. I have not gotten to the PvP section yet, nor am I really looking forward to it. I despise PvP, so anytime I'm forced to do it in an MMO, I try to get it overwith as quickly as possible. I'd recommend CO for the character creation, which is loads of fun, but not so much for gameplay, which is clunky, repetitive, and given to overwrought hyperbole. When creating the character is more fun than actually playing it, there's something seriously wrong with the game. Rating: - Played the Halloween "free weekend" through Steam..and I was impressed. I even purchased the game, after waiting a week, to see if I would reconsider my stance. Back in the day I was a pencil & paper Champions player. Yep, one of THOSE! >:) The character creation system is all that others have talked about, very good, lots of variable outfits, body types & colors. I will say that I fully expect more to be added on in the future. Even in the time that I played there is 'locked' costume pieces that I could not get to until I had accomplished something in-game. The game, and I have played City of Heros Online, is better in that you are not in 'just' a city at the start. The terrain varies, and the enemy/villians are varied and entertaining. (Snarky comments and all.) The Champions system lends itself to the online venue very well. One thing I didn't like is that the powers/skills limitations to the Champion's "Hero System" is not mapped out/explained. (The order in which you get the powers & buff points, that is.) At least I didn't find it, I'm sure a wiki will spring up in record time, they usually do. So the player will not know when he will get points for a new power, or just a point to buff the power. In contrast though, is that you can "retask" or "rebalance" all of your skills with a couple clicks, at anytime. (It does cost 'resources' though.) Doing this will open up some pretty nifty buffs for a single skill at low level. (Can you say "Nuclear Punch" for a 10th level? It's all I got, but when it connects...lights-out.) I did notice that the Devs were able to supress MUCH of the spam problems that other games seem to have. For a free weekend, I was amazed I wasn't hammered in general chat, or direct chat, for "free resources" (The currency of the realm.) A solid plus in my book. So far, I am giving this a 4 out of 5. More later, JD Rating: - Maybe One Day, But Not NowChampions Online has the potential of being a great game. It allows for a lot of creativity in the creation of your character, both in appearance and powers. The problem with the game is that it is still extremely buggy. There are some missions you cannot select, some villains you can't target, and the server has been down a lot in the short time since its release. Furthermore, it plays more like a single player game than an MMO since it lacks any significant benefit to forming teams and interacting with other players. It seems pointless to be [...] a month to play something that can be played on a Playstation Cryptic may be working on fixing these issues now, I don't know. At this point in time, I would not recommend picking up this game while there are so many other MMOs out there at are more technologically stable and more fun. Rating:  - Starts out fun, turns bad relatively quicklyI was talked into playing Champions Online by a friend who is into hero games. I'm not really into those games, but MMOs are always more fun when you play with people you know. The game is fun at first, but quickly loses its luster as there is no real depth, nothing new, only a few areas to play in, and you are forced to replay the same areas over and over if you start a new character. It's possible the game will get better, but they clearly shipped too soon. They've apparently lost a large number of customers too, because they've already sent out emails to those of that canceled asking us to try the "new content and new powerset this weekend for free." A game that is less than two months old and is already giving out free play time does not bode well. 
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