A non review by someone who doesn't review games

Malakhon

Patching was a chore (yesterday). Okay, but I am over it. Today it has run flawlessly and that is really nice out of the gate.

I am taking a break because after playing for about 10 hours straight.

I have to say that the art style grows on you. The cel shading is perfect for the genre and gives a larger than life quality to the enemies.

 

My initial experiences;

I have had alt mania and made about 5 characters. I've been wanting to try out a few different things and see how that works. As I continue to play through the introduction scenario I really get a sense for the differences in characters. A Gadgeteer slowly doing build up and one-shotting an enemy versus a dual blader running in and slice and dicing.

At first, most of the characters play kind of the same. you get an energy build up power (cool, you can do stuff when you have run out of endurance!) and a big attack power. I can see how at first people may complain about this being cookie cutter, but I think what it does is ensure you get a decent un-gimped start. There are differences between these starting powers.

There are no "Classes" but the archetypes they provide are fairly different enough that there should be something for everyone. I can see them adding more as the game continues.

The costuming is sublime. You could make a full on all fours wolf or even a Qularr alien (the tutorial enemies).  Robes, and capes right out of the gate? another +1 over City of Heroes.  I am sure there will be comparisons to COH and Wow, but I think that there is enough distinction between these three games that Champions Online will have its own place.

The starting mission is pretty cool. You have a public quest that is similar to Warhammer Online thats not too hard and you can sort of get the jist on how those work. You get treated like a Hero at the end, which is also a realy nice feeling and then its off to Canada or the Desert for more work.

My only concern with the starting mission is this; It may get old after a while, I'd love to see more than one starting position.

PROS;

The voice acting is really good and the missions so far (I am only in Canada) have felt like "Heroic" missions. I defeated alien overlords, rescued a kitten from a dangerous situation, defended a cannon, defeated the big baddy all in a hour or so.

There is "Crafting". I haven't got too far in it, but I really like that you can "Research" old items to gain components and skill and you can get blueprints to make new items.  If they put the best components out in a pvp area or something that will be even better. I am excited about this.

There is "Gear" in the game!   It isn't the traditional "Helmet" "Shield". The gear sort of also reflects experiences you may have had, like a touch from the Qular hive mind or the training of a mentor. You sort of slot it based on it's purpose.

right off the bat, after you get done with the starting mission you get a travel power. YAY! They give you points for increasing your abilities and "Focuses" and all these different things you can do to make your character different.

Two 5th level "Gadgeteers" will probably be nothing alike powerwise other than the two starting powers. Thats really nice.

My Gadgeteer I took the digging power, and I could roam around the canadian north and then pop out and fry some ice demons. That was really cool.

There is no "Server" that you could identify with. As in the COH "This is Virtue server".  Instead, every zone has MANY instances. I think my concern there is finding a friend I know and being in the same instance as them. Since I generally solo this shouldn't be a big deal to me. It would be cool though if you could have a number that you regularly try. If you try to zone to a 'full' one it kicks you back out, I think it should just put you in the next available one and tell you it tried but couldn't do the one you wanted.

CONS;

One part that irks me is that it attaches your user name to your posts. The one you LOG into the game with. "Hello hackers..here is half of what you need to get into my account." everytime I chat? I can't figure out how to change my global handle. I hope this is something that will change.

This one is not so much a con as it is just a "nice to have". I'd love to see many of the archetypes offer a melee power AND a ranged attack as your initial choice for your damage power. I could have seen being a gadgeteer with a chainsaw instead of a sonic rifle.

The instanced server means that there can be no variant servers like an all pvp server or an all rp server, that is unfortunate. I'd love to see some way to do open PVP and/or cater to RPers.

Some of the travel powers, like webs and ice, are so reminiscent of iconic super heroes, I can hardly stand the thought of so many "Sp1d3rman.z" characters that will flood the game. I am not a fan of anachronisms like that. It just spoils a little of the immersion for me personally.

I really don't have a lot of cons other than this. I think for a Beta I am actually impressed.

 

 

Final Judgement; I'd be stupid not to plunk down 200 bucks to play this unlimited. Its cool and it pwns coh.

Later levels may be a different story, but so far, yeah I am loving it.

 

 

 

SpectralHunter

 Just a few things I want to comment:

You can switch instances so if your friend is in a different instance, you can join him/her as long as that instance is not full.  I actually love the idea of one server.  You never have to worry about having to reroll because some friend is playing on a different server.

The tutorial mission will get old just like it did for CoH.  Hopefully Cryptic will add some variety in the future.  We'll see.  For now, it'll be like CoH when I got so good at it, I could crank out a tutorial within 30 minutes.

You can get a melee attack with a ranged attack.  You just have to make a custom framework.  So you could for example, pick some ranged attack from Force and then use a heavy hitting melee attack from Might.

You can change the name that appears in-game with your username by contacting customer support.  Many people did this in close beta and I have a feeling they'll just make it available when the game launches.

neoterrar

What I did, because I was curious...was setup shop in the Powerhouse

Then I dumped ALL my powers..and just pick and choose at random and fought dummies

or PvP'd. As long as you don't leave the Powerhouse, it doesn't cost  you to continually respec.

 

Bureyku

You would be stupid to not drop 200$ on this?  On a first impression review?  Thanks for your insight...

lornphoenix

Originally posted by Malakhon



CONS;
One part that irks me is that it attaches your user name to your posts. The one you LOG into the game with. "Hello hackers..here is half of what you need to get into my account." everytime I chat? I can't figure out how to change my global handle. I hope this is something that will change.
Final Judgement; I'd be stupid not to plunk down 200 bucks to play this unlimited. Its cool and it pwns coh.

My global handle and my username are different... so this isn't an issue, for me.

I'm having fun with the game, but it is not worth the lifetime sub... I doubt it's worth the 6 month one either.

I'd probably get 2 months out of it at most.

I'm going to keep my preorder, it's going give me something fun to do while I wait for Aion's headstart on 20th.

Malakhon

Originally posted by Bureyku


You would be stupid to not drop 200$ on this?  On a first impression review?  Thanks for your insight...

 

Yes, because I did the LOTRO lifetime sub on a much weaker hunch and have been really happy there.

So for me, this beta convinces me that they are moving in the right direction and given I've paid for 5 years of COH, the 200 dollars is a pretty safe bet to work out cheaper.