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It's a pretty good game.
MCEscher
Member Posts: 97
I've played MMO's since before that term was around - I played Meridian 59, The Realm, UO, EQ, Shadowbane, DAOC, AO, AOC, War, CoH, WoW, LOTRO, you name it. I have decent taste in games, I think. I'm not a little kid at any rate and I played FF6 on my SNES.
I like this game. I liked CoH too, for many of the same reasons. I definitely see this as City of Heroes 2, but I think that this design team has that right. City of Heroes was their game and developed by these people for the most important part of its development - even if they didn't do a perfect job. If Bioware came out with KOTOR 3 you wouldn't claim they ripped off KOTOR 2.
What this game has going for it is that it is fun to play. The last MMO I spent real time on was LOTRO, and combat is very slow and deliberate there. In this game some twitch skills have a huge effect on battle - playing as a "blaster" (Munitions/Force) I noticed early on that I had to use Block pretty often to survive. Especially after I got to be level 40 in the end-beta event; I had to block almost every attack that the Mega Destroid threw or I'd be down in 3 hits. Not to mention trying to herd your enemies into the correct pattern so that AoE attacks will hit., or even using cover to dodge a range attack while your force field recharges. The base mechanics here are exciting - travel is also exciting. Very few MMO's can say this.
The customization is key too. One of the reasons I like this game so much - and if you don't feel the same way I can see why you might not like the game as much - is that I can create very customized characters. I like to dream up some weird characters and the closer I can bring them to life in a game, the happier I am. So I have my existential terrorist Escher who bends reality (force) and shoots guys with assault rifles (munitions). The fact that I could do such a specific and weird combo in the game means a lot to me. I'm a Fiction writer in real life and you can almost use this game as a character design engine alone.
It seems like the focus is on solo gameplay. That means I'll probably still keep my LOTRO account for fun raids and group play; this game however is a great supplement to that. "Casual" is a bad way to describe it because the combat is actually very deep and there are a LOT of subtle differences in the power sets. I would call it "Not Insane" though.
Abilities - I tried out Supernatural, Telekises, Telepathy, Munitions, Force, Darkness and Magic sets up to level 8. They all felt pretty different to me; Supernatural is a hybrid tank. Telekinesis is mainly a really bizarre melee fighter with high damage resistance. Telepathy was heavy ranged damage (with a really strange charge-up power builder) and control. Munitions was my favorite; every power (almost) is a "maintain" attack that deals really fast heavy streams of damage. Holding down the trigger and spraying mobs with Submachine gun bursts - and quick powers with no cooldown - make combat a blast. Then switch on the Force and blow them all back - and use it for defense of course.
Defense is very important for gameplay. You absolutely must find some sort of passive defense way to survive and they are all different. Some are regen, which offer the best against a slow steady stream of damage (or one that builds) but is weaker against high upfront damage. Force is the exact opposite - it will block the first few heavy hits and then fade. There are two other different ones I haven't experimented with yet.
Stats - you can have 4 stats actually, not 2 as many people have been saying. You can either max two or spread it amongst 4. This keeps you from making a perfect Blaster/Scrapper/Tank. At level 40 there was a huge difference between my Supernatural tank and my Munitions blaster because the tank put everything into Recovery and Regen and Endurance; his regen (defense) was insane but he didn't have a 50% crit attack change and huge crit multiplier that my Blaster did.
Someone did quip that there were only two real types of characters in the game - blasters and scrappers. It does kinda feel like that, though some blasters can control (or even have crazy defense} and some scrappers can get ranged or control or be defense-based. Still, I was having trouble finding group-taunt powers and other tank-specific powers.
Graphics - I like these a lot. I like the cell shaded/black line look so I'm pretty pumped about the game; I always thought this would have been an obvious choice for a City of Heroes type game. I loved comic books as a kid so I'm all for this. Also some of the combat animations (like Gun Kata) and the spell effects are the best in any MMO I've seen, hands down. Knockback, ragdoll, giant explosions, rocket launchers, hell opening up, ginormous lightning bolts, you name it.
Sound - The sound effects are solid, the music is a little lacking. I have heard there is some sort of way to use Winamp playlists as the music in-game; I thoroughly support this idea as anyone who puts serious time into an MMO ends up running a background music program anyway. I thought that music was good but sparse. The guns sound good though; the SMG sounds much different than the Assault Rifle for instance.
At any rate this game is not perfect but the core mechanics are there. I'd give this game a 7.8 in its current state and if they could tweak all the little problems - some balance, some bugs, I sense maybe some pacing problems in the 20's, and keep bringing in more content.. I could see this game getting a 9.0 or so from me. This is a good game - not for everyone, but I think quite a few people will really like it.
Comments
hey man since noone posted yet i wanted to tell you wrote a very nice review. Very well written
.
Thanx,
Reggie
It's good to see a review that isn't completely biased or based on extremism for once.
Good review! I may try the game down the road.
I wish more ppl wrote reviews like this.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Good review, Its how I feel about the game also. Decent game, got its bugs and problems but alot of fun.
Dint play City of Heroes so Im not sure how well or how bad they did compared to it. But I had a good time in Beta.
Dax.
Xbox 360 games are garbage.
Champions Online is an Xbox 360 game.
Therefore, Champions Online is garbage.
Good review!
I maybe buy this game on my Xbox360!
PC games are fun.
Champions Online is a PC game.
Therefore, Champions Online is fun?
Dax
PC games are fun.
Champions Online is a PC game.
Therefore, Champions Online is fun?
Dax
Nah, it's not a PC game. It's an Xbox 360 game that happens to be ported to the PC.
And you know this because?
Or just cause you can use a 360 controller? I guess if that makes a 360 game then your right.
Dax.
Im not gonna say anything bad about the game i just did not care for it. Did some testing and filed some bugs and it was just not my cup of tea.
Jihad works both ways
MAGA
I would never have purchased the game either untill I played in the open beta this past weekend. The character customization(not looks but actual skills) is a lot deeper than I thought it would be. That is the kind of game I have been looking for myself. So I went ahead and purchased it. Its not perfect by any means and no game ever will be. I am still looking for that truly group centric game with good character customization and slower paced strategic combat and who knows someone may actually make one of those eventually. This game though satifies a few of those needs and has a lot of potential to go further. I did think there were a ton of similiarites between this and CoH but I like this one a lot better. Although I have not CoH for a long while yet(since before CoV) and so not sure what its like now.
Something I noticed playing this weekend. After putting in about 20 hours or more I only crashed once. There were probably some bugs I didnt notice...but if they are of the type I dont really notice...well for me thats good enough in a game. Also skill and a well thought out character build will win over button mashing in this game any day so for me thats another plus. Although with the right build button mashing will work so for those who prefer that its still available.
"I like to dream up some weird characters and the closer I can bring them to life in a game, the happier I am. So I have my existential terrorist Escher who bends reality (force) and shoots guys with assault rifles (munitions). "
Hits the mark on why I like the game so much. It picks up from COH and goes all the way. Havent had so much fun in an mmo in years.
Exactly, this is what all the trolls just ain't gettin': CoX did it, and now CO will do it again. Do what? Provide a game in which you can think up whatever damn character you please, and have a good chance of realising something close to your idea in the game. That element, in itself, is a huge part of the actual game in CoX, and I should imagine in CO too (no reason to doubt it).
IOW, Cryptic really highlight the "RPG" element in "MMORPG", in a certain focussed way that's uniquely theirs, and to a very high standard of implementation. The other MMO aspects, they don't do spectacularly well, but passably well; but this thing of building a character that's uniquely yours, uniquely the product of your own creative brain, that's their strong suit.
For some people, that "blank canvas" Cryptic provide just doesn't ring any bells, but for others there is no other MMO experience like it, it's just beyond orgasmic. I think by making CO more action-oriented, Cryptic have tried to widen the market somewhat, and I think it's a pretty good bet they're making - that there will be enough kids on consoles who have never experienced the traditional PC MMO thing, but will really enjoy an action game in which it's possible to craft and customize your own superhero that you can show off to others, and play in PvE groups with, and PvP with.
If you look at the history of CoX, it was actually quite a big success by MMO standards in the beginning (I think it was around 400k initially, for a good year or so?), but for various reasons (now well-known) it was never able to quite sustain that level of interest (although it had a good retention rate and strong loyalty). But the amount of interest that was there in the beginning does show there's a decent amount of interest for superhero MMOs. If we add to that known quantity of interest on the PC side, the undoubted extra amount of interest that's likely to be shown by a fair proportion of the console market, and if Cryptic can hold that interest and not lose it like it did with CoX, then everyone involved is going to be extremely happy
But even if they fail in that grand goal, another decently successful niche MMO like CoX is nothing to be ashamed of.
Yes the game is fun.
But there is long term fun and short term fun.
At the moment the game is short term fun. That works great for a Single Player game where you charge for a box once at a premium price. Players play it and move on.
MMOs however need long term fun. You don't charge premium price for a box. You rely on ongoing subscription fees.
IF you can retain subscriptions long term then you are in the money. If you can't - you lose.
Example: I purchased Battlefield Vietnam for AU$90. That's a one time expense. The developer get's their cut whether I play it once for one hour or hundreds of times for three hours at a time. They never get less but they never get more either.
WWIIoL is a subscriber game - I purchased the box and the first month of play for $5. If I had quit at that point the developer only get's their cut of $5. However I have now been a subscriber for 2+ years (24 x $15 = $360)
That's the gamble of MMOs.
I read somewhere that 4 months sub is about the break even point for most MMOs.
Now, do you think the character creation on Champions Online is enough to keep you (or anyone else) subbed for 4+ months?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
To me a game doesn't have to be all things. I'll play it till I max, then go get Borderlands or something of the like, comeback when then updates come out. Overall the combat model was fun enough to romp through. That is the worst case scenario and I can live with that.
Yep. It has more end-game content that most MMOs at launch. Granted, that may not be saying much. And its basically designed for making alts.
The end game group missions are actually kinda hard. Granted we were level 40s with level ~20ish gear... but we got our butts handed to us pretty bad. It's encouraging to see difficult content in at release, makes me believe they'll continue to scale the difficulty as they add new content.
Even if the game was much better than it is, I still morally object to RMT and wouldn't buy it.
O.o
Dax
I'm gonna stick with it. I think it will be FUN. To me, it's more of a game I can play casually and pass the time. You don't have to play for hours to get somewhere.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
Oh, easily - especially in combination with the surprisingly deep skill system (it kind of looks a bit simple at first, but when you start digging, it's got a nice lot of complexity and interlacing synergies, and cost/benefit calculations). It's all about the RPG element - i.e. building the character you want to build. The more ideas you have for characters, the more you are into RPG toon-building, the more fun CO will be to you (I'm judging this by its similarity to CoX of course, haven't played it yet).
With CoX, there was a certain kind of attachment and deep love you had to your characters (especially the ones where everything "clicked") right from the beginning that you usually only get with MMOs once you've "settled in" to a character. One might say, love for one's character is front-weighted in CoX (and looks to be the same in CO), whereas love for one's character is back-weighted in most other MMOs (i.e. you love your character when you've invested a lot of time and effort into it).
This is tailor made for altitis. In fact, I saw someone commenting in response to the recent Rock, Paper, Scissors beta writeup, that he was surprised that he'd caught altitis really strongly with the CO beta, whereas normally he's the sort of guy who sticks with one character throughout an MMO.
And altitis does seem to be enough to sustain an MMO - it did it for CoX for 5 years, and CoX lacked a lot of the usual, expected MMO tropes. The fact that CO has the same altitis-inducing RPG system and it has addressed some of the lacks of CoX, bodes well. (Although the 8 character slots only is going to chafe for some - but I think 8 is probably enough altitis for most people.) Hopefully, this should keep CO at the 300-400k level, rather than going down from that to 100-150k like CoX did.
Most single player games only last about 20 hours of gameplay and cost the same as a MMORPG box game. It seems kind of silly to complain about a MMORPG only being fun for a few month. Man I WISH all my games lasted that long. An MMOG is a game. Its not a career choice, a college major, or a marraige vow. You play a game until its no longer fun. As long as you're getting 40+ hours out of it, why complain.
Besides, I would rather have a blast for two months than a long drawn out tedius grind for six months. I've got other games to play to. Between Borderlands, Elemental War of Magic, and Dragon Age, I almost HOPE I lose interest in CO after a few months.