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City of Heroes MMO Leaps Tall Buildings?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "This week, GameSpy is serving up a variety of articles regarding Cryptic Studios' upcoming massively multiplayer superhero PC roleplaying game, City of Heroes (following up on its December 2003 preview). The preview offers hands-on impressions of the game, a look at the origin and ongoing adventures of Kingblade (an in-game character created by one of the editors), a roundtable with the developers, several screenshot galleries, and more. City of Heroes is currently in beta and scheduled for released on April 27, 2004. Will it join the ranks of Freedom Force in breaking the legendary superhero game curse? Only time will tell, true believers!" There's more info on this NCSoft-published game at COH Stratics and the official site.
9. ModMen
8. 10,000 Natalie Portmans
7. In Soviet Russia, the world saves super heroes!
6. The Legion of "BSD is Dead" Trolls
5. Cowboy Neal Terra-Man
4. Cmdr Taco
3. Adm Burrito
2. Captain Goatze
1. Major McBride, always on the lookout for his arch foe The Penguin.
It's a tactical team-based RPG type thing.
A sort of X-Com: UFO Defense - but with superheroes and supervillains instead of marines and aliens.
It was pretty well received despite being aimed at the low-system-requirement market (a bit behind the times graphically). It is certainly a quality title and is only obscure because of a near-complete lack of marketing. Gamer and critical reviews are nearly all praise.
There's a demo (windows-only) you can download when you're free of the fascist-network regime: here.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
The game takes a very tongue-in-cheek approach to the superhero genre. It's set in the 1960s and exhibits the designers' obvious love of Marvel's Stan Lee/Jack Kirby epics of the 1960s.
Personally, I loved the game. There's a sequel on the way in the near future, too.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
This game truly should have been done with a mor exaggerated or comic-book-ish style of art.
I see the screenshots, and it just looks to me like an x-men movie would have looked if they kept the blue and yellow spandex. Visually, it seems disjointed. The models are too close to photorealism, the effects too snazzy for the costumes and subject matter to work.
At the very least, I'd de-emphasize the comic-booky style costumes - but i'd prefer the art more stylized: more exaggerated characterization, exaggerated heroic posing, a less sharp image, kinda ham it up a bit.
maybe it's a minor quibble - but I think it's fairly important to establish mood and genre. Spandex-style superheroes are not mainstream culture the way black leather is (xmen, matrix). And spandex just doesn't look right in a more photorealistic setting.
I'm not saying the graphics are -bad-, they just don't fit the game. Either the visuals are presented too 'realistic' for a more casual gameplay, or the gameplay and visuals are too realistic for the costumes.
Consider World of Warcraft -- the thing oozes consistent style with their professed gameplay. It all seems to fit together. Then look at the screenshots for City of Heroes: undoubtedly well crafted, a beautiful engine - but the heroes, their poses, and half their powers just look out of place.
Maybe it'll be a fun game, but you gotta wonder if the conflicted focus carries through to the gameplay.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
So lemme get this straight...there are no bad guy players? Everyone's good? That sucks! The idea of being a Dr. Octopus or Riddler or Lex Luther or something and trying to orchestrate crimes without getting caught, not to mention trying to kill the do-gooders, would have been a blast! I think they're seriously missing out on a demogrphic here.
--trb
"
One social feature of the game that deserves special mention is the "sidekick" feature. In a typical massively multiplayer game, high-level characters can't really effectively adventure with low-level characters -- if your friends develop their characters past you, you might as well kiss them goodbye.
City of Heroes combats that problem in a way that fits in with the title's "all action, no hassle" gameplay. If you want to team up with a high-level character, you become that character's "sidekick." All of your existing powers are souped up, almost to the level of your mentor's, so you can participate in all of the high-level missions. The experience a sidekick gets will only be proportional to his/her level, but at least nobody gets left out of the action. It's a fun way to make sure that everyone can enjoy the game, and it fits in perfectly with superhero fiction."
Anyone that has played MMO's will appreciate this feature. I like to play with my wife on Dark Age of Camelot, but I find that it takes her about 10x as long to XP her toons up as me, unless I spend all my time PL'n her. This is a way for me to play at my pace, and include my non-junkie friends in the adventures without having to feel like I need to slow down or them get discouraged they are left behind.
This game looks great, I will definately give it a try.
Actually I've seen several copies in a local EB for $9.99. I picked it up at that price, and it's definitely worth it, especially with the mods available at various websites. Also, the newest patch of the game (1.2?) adds a "Danger Room" feature, so you can easily play around with your own super heroes on several game levels against some customizable AI superheroes. The campaign itself may be short, but the super hero creation system is extremely robust -- it alone is worth the price of admission.