Champions Online
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:17 pm
So there I was, determined to not pay for an MMO until FFXIV comes out, and I get roped into Champions Online, which I tried during the beta, and wasn't really taken with it. I am happy to say it's improved a lot since then, and has a lot more depth than I initially gave it credit for.
Overall:
If you played City of Heroes, it's like that only a ton more interesting. With the possible exception of the cold, dead piece of my heart reserved for FFXI, this is the most fun MMO I've played.
Graphics:
This game looks very good, it's got a nice cell-shaded, comic book style. The visual effects of the abilities are nice and varied, and over the top when they need to be.
Character Creation:
Ridiculous. You can pretty much make anything. There are only a few costume pieces that would be nice to have, but it's the most impressive selection I've seen, next to - go figure - CoH. You certainly won't see any clones of yourself running around - unless of course you felt the need to make an actual comic book hero, like a lame ass.
Progression/Leveling:
You start off in Millennium City, or a small part of it anyway, in an extended tutorial - there's a good dozen missions, and a boss fight at the end. You level almost entirely off of quests as opposed to grinding enemies, similar to Runes of Magic. You then go to either Canada or the Desert to start your next section, a bit longer than the tutorial, with another boss fight at the end. After that, you can go anywhere between Canada, the Desert, and Millennium City. There are tons of quests to do in each, and the areas are pretty big, and very nicely varied - you never feel like you're seeing the same place twice. At level 5 (about - just after the tutorial), you get your travel power, and the game really opens up. There are several types of flight, teleportation, swinging - you name it. And they're all implemented perfectly; you won't have any trouble getting to missions.
Other:
You can solo almost everything, but grouping in 3-4 is amazing. There are no "servers", but several instances of each area, and you can go between them at any time. Upon switching areas, it will tell you which of the instances have your friends and teammates. Controls are pretty standard MMO stuff, but the variation of power controls is what stands out to me. Choosing a ranged character will not only look and act differently than a melee character, it will play differently. There are auto attacks, charged attacks, maintained attacks, and button-mashing attacks. The AI is impressive, minus a few minor pathfinding issues.
My only real complaint about this game is the extreme linearity. For a game so caught up in character customization, it's unbelievable that you would have almost no choice in the quests you take to level. You pretty much have to complete each quest of a particular level before you get to the next level, at which point, you do all of that level's quests, etc. As you progress, you have a little more flexibility, but not much. And since you get next to no experience for killing enemies, you can't grind to level up so that you can complete a mission solo. Well, you could - but it would literally take hours to get a single level - even at really low levels.
Again, overall a lot of fun - probably the only P2P MMO worth the subscription fee.
This is one of my characters:
I don't normally play female characters, but I saw the disheveled mohawk and had to do it.
Overall:
If you played City of Heroes, it's like that only a ton more interesting. With the possible exception of the cold, dead piece of my heart reserved for FFXI, this is the most fun MMO I've played.
Graphics:
This game looks very good, it's got a nice cell-shaded, comic book style. The visual effects of the abilities are nice and varied, and over the top when they need to be.
Character Creation:
Ridiculous. You can pretty much make anything. There are only a few costume pieces that would be nice to have, but it's the most impressive selection I've seen, next to - go figure - CoH. You certainly won't see any clones of yourself running around - unless of course you felt the need to make an actual comic book hero, like a lame ass.
Progression/Leveling:
You start off in Millennium City, or a small part of it anyway, in an extended tutorial - there's a good dozen missions, and a boss fight at the end. You level almost entirely off of quests as opposed to grinding enemies, similar to Runes of Magic. You then go to either Canada or the Desert to start your next section, a bit longer than the tutorial, with another boss fight at the end. After that, you can go anywhere between Canada, the Desert, and Millennium City. There are tons of quests to do in each, and the areas are pretty big, and very nicely varied - you never feel like you're seeing the same place twice. At level 5 (about - just after the tutorial), you get your travel power, and the game really opens up. There are several types of flight, teleportation, swinging - you name it. And they're all implemented perfectly; you won't have any trouble getting to missions.
Other:
You can solo almost everything, but grouping in 3-4 is amazing. There are no "servers", but several instances of each area, and you can go between them at any time. Upon switching areas, it will tell you which of the instances have your friends and teammates. Controls are pretty standard MMO stuff, but the variation of power controls is what stands out to me. Choosing a ranged character will not only look and act differently than a melee character, it will play differently. There are auto attacks, charged attacks, maintained attacks, and button-mashing attacks. The AI is impressive, minus a few minor pathfinding issues.
My only real complaint about this game is the extreme linearity. For a game so caught up in character customization, it's unbelievable that you would have almost no choice in the quests you take to level. You pretty much have to complete each quest of a particular level before you get to the next level, at which point, you do all of that level's quests, etc. As you progress, you have a little more flexibility, but not much. And since you get next to no experience for killing enemies, you can't grind to level up so that you can complete a mission solo. Well, you could - but it would literally take hours to get a single level - even at really low levels.
Again, overall a lot of fun - probably the only P2P MMO worth the subscription fee.
This is one of my characters:
I don't normally play female characters, but I saw the disheveled mohawk and had to do it.