City of Heroes

"Paragon City Needs YOU!"

Don't deny it. At least once in your life you dreamed that you can fly through the air, shoot beams out of your eyes, web sling from building to building, run at super speeds, or punch people and make them go flying 50 feet. Unfortunately, the majority of games that let you have these kinds of powers really suck ass. So gamers have never really had the chance to truly become a super hero.

Well, now's your chance.

In NCSoft's new unique MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), you can become your favorite super hero or just make your own secret identity to fight crime with. The place is Paragon City, an area where crime runs rampant thanks to several villainous groups who each have their own agendas to accomplish.

But lets get on with the game. To start with, you have the most in depth character creation system I've ever played around with. Pretty much every kind of costume you could ever dream about having for your super hero is included (as well as many costumes that could be used to duplicate your favorite comic book super heroes.) The only thing thats missing here are the capes and cloaks, which I would guess will be added some time in the future. But hey, capes are hard to do well. You have to take into factor how they blow in the wind, how they react when you move and turn, and that much detail might be hard to keep when you have thousands of people on a server at once.

Before you even start making your characters appearance though, you must select you character's origin and archetype. Origin basically means how you got your powers. Are they a result of a scientific experiment/mishap? A genetic mutation? A magical occurance? Technology? Or is it just natural ability? Your origin selection will affect what kind of enhancements (i'll cover these later) your character will be able to use later on in the game. After you select your origin, you must select your character's archetype. This is basically your class of character.

Blasters = Ranged fighter
Scrappers = Melee damage dealer
Defenders = Team supporter
Tankers = Melee damage taker
Controllers = Adverse affects caster

Each archetype has several primary power sets and secondary power sets. These are what gives you your powers. Example: You decide that you want to be a scrapper. Well as a scrapper, you have a choice between 6 primary power sets, all of which have their own set of skills that have to do with their theme. You could use a broad sword, katana, claws (ala wolverine), spines (Spikes come out of your body), dark melee, and martial arts. After you get your primary power set, you then get to choose from a secondary power set. Secondary power sets can be something like super reflexes, invulnerability, regeneration, etc. Once you got your powers set up, you can create your characters appearance, and head on into Paragon City. But your powers don't end there. Once you hit level 6, you are able to choose from what are called power pools. These are powers that every archetype can use and include the transportation powers (like flying, super speed, teleportation and the like) and healing powers.

Oh yeah, did I mention that there are no items in City of Heroes?

MMORPG vet: "No items!? That sucks! Why would I play a game where I can't find a +1000/+1000 long sword of uberness and impress all the n00bs?!"

Actually, the no items deal works well. Instead of items, you get enhancements. Enhancements are little circle things that you can place into slots for your powers in order to... well... Enhance them. Every other level, you are able to add two enhancement slots to any of your powers. Enhancements can include adding more damage to your power, more accuracy, less endurance used, faster recharge time, etc. Also, instead of your usual potions and ethers, you get "Inspirations". These are your inventory items that you can use to give your health a quick boost, recharge your endurance, boost up your stats, protect yourself from adverse effects, etc. All of these things can be bought at stores using "Influence" which is CoH's form of currency.

Now that we got the basics covered, I'll break down the categories.

Graphics: 8/10

The world of Paragon City is a really beautiful place. You look up in places like Atlas Park or Steel Canyon and you'll see magnificent skyscrappers towering above you. Its almost like there are worlds within worlds that only certain characters can access. Like only people with the ability to fly will be able to soar above the city and see everything thats going on below, and people with the super jump ability can leap from roof top to roof top to get to their destination. Characters all look great and the effects for the powers just look spectacular. Whats also impressive is that even with 7 characters all doing their powers at once, the game suffers very limited slowdown. So overall, the graphics aren't going to be a showcase for next gen games or anything, but they're still leaps and bounds better than most MMORPG's i've seen or played.

Control: 9/10
Now this is the first MMORPG I've ever owned, and the first one I've played for a significant amount of time, so things like rotating the camera took a little getting used to for me. But controls are completely customizable, are all contained in a very intuitive interface and work very well.

Gameplay: 7/10
This is where I have to knock off a few points. As of right now, theres really not much more to City of Heroes rather than finding thugs and monsters, beating the crap outta them, gaining exp/enhancements, and moving on to the next group of monsters. The thing that saves the game from sheer repetitiveness is the easy ability to find and join parties in the game. With the simple click of a button, you are put on a list of people that are looking for a group, and all someone has to do at that point is check your level and archetype, see if your suitable for their group, and click invite, and bam you got a group. Playing with groups is fun since you can take on much harder monsters in a much larger quantity, and once you get a group of 7 people all using their powers at once, things get pretty intense. The game does offer missions as well for those who are looking for a reason to be mindless killing enemies. You get your missions through contacts located at various points throughout the many zones of Paragon City (think Commissioner Gordon or Lois Lane). You find them, ask for a mission, and they will tell you either to go kill X number of Y monster types in location Z, or go to X building/sewer/cave in location Y and do some kind of action (which usually involves clearing the area of badguys and killing a boss.) One cool thing is that when you're in a party, everyone's missions are availible for the group to complete. Of course when you have 7 people doing a mission, there will be alot more monsters to kill and they will be alot tougher to bring down to make it more balanced.

So overall, the gameplay is as interesting as PvM (player vs monster) can get. Luckily an expansion called City of Villains is already in the works that will introduce PvP (Player vs Player) along with the ability to create your own super villains.

Sound: 7/10
Nothing memorable, but again it helps set the atmosphere nicely. Everything sounds just as you expect it to. Music varies from zone to zone. So when you enter the grimy and grey area of Kings Row, you will hear alot of electric guitar and all that stuff.

Overall: 8/10

If you've ever wanted to get into the MMORPG scene, but have been intimidated by all of the complex menus and stats and things that are inherent with other games of the genre, City of Heroes is perfect for you. There is a monthly fee of 15 bucks which will definitely drive some people away, but heres how I look at it. Recently, the maximum life span of a game that I play is about a month and a half. The first month of City of Heroes is free. Even if you just play that one month and then cancel your subscription, you still got a pretty good deal for 50 bucks. Or if you really like the game, you can continue for as long as you're still having fun. The game does get a little repetitive and I will probably be putting my subscription on hold after another month, but being a super hero is extremely satisfying and fun to do.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/25/04