City of Heroes is the first imaginative online experience in years.
User Rating: 8.3 | City of Heroes PC
Wake up, true believers, and welcome to a new concept in online RPG’s, where pure enjoyment takes precedence over grind, and cool superhero powers overshadow unwieldy inventory systems and spawn camping. This is the world of NCSoft’s hero-themed MMORPG City Of Heroes, a refreshing entry in a crowded genre, and perhaps the first true original concept amongst games that often prize clunky combat and tedious exploration. City of Heroes is a welcome addition to a growing list, and while its focused gameplay and somewhat shallow character development may not satisfy experienced role players for long, newcomers and those needing fresh air in a stagnant genre will be thrilled with the first imaginative online experience in years. As with most online games, narrative takes a backseat to actual gameplay, although City Of Heroes’ story provides the necessary backdrop to a swashbuckling good time. Paragon City has been home to heroes with mysterious powers since the time of the Great Depression, and is now rebuilding after a devastating war with an alien race called the Rikti. New heroes are arriving to deal with the lingering Rikti threat and the street criminals taking advantage of the besieged city. The story is told through the comments of passersby and other key NPC’s, and while it is not an afterthought as such, it takes a secondary role to what is essentially an online extravaganza of criminals and heroes. The character creation process is perhaps the most humorous and detailed yet created in a game of this type. There are five main archetypes: the Blaster, who specializes in ranged offense; the Controller, who affects villain behavior but does relatively little damage and has few hit points; the Defender, a healing and buff specialist with some significant ranged attacks; the Scrapper, a master of hand-to-hand combat; and the appropriately named Tanker, who soaks up even more damage than he dishes. Within these archetypes, a player will choose both a primary and secondary set of powers. For example, a Scrapper may have claws as his primary offense, but also has access to dark melee skills, which drain hit points from enemies and replenish his own. The physical customization of your hero is peerless, with seemingly infinite varieties of armor, clothing, and other paraphernalia, ensuring that if you can imagine a superhero, you can also create him. Currently, you are limited to creating a good guy; player villains are planned for an upcoming expansion, but are not yet implemented. Soon after you create your avatar, you will enter City Of Heroes’ training area, where you learn gameplay basics. CoH features perhaps the most accessible interface created for a game of this type, and it does not interfere with the main focus of play: combat. While most games of this type feature other elements, such as trade skills or crafting options, City Of Heroes strips away all of those diversions. Players may also be struck by the complete lack of items and inventory. The only items to be found in Paragon City are “inspirations,” which act as temporary buffs; and “enhancements,” which increase the effectiveness of your powers. You will also earn “influence” as you fight crime, which can then be used to purchase inspirations or enhancements, but you will find plenty of them as loot from slain enemies. This original system strips away kill-stealing and most player disputes, but also points to what may be the game’s biggest liability: lack of depth. Once you have created your character, his physical appearance will be unchanged, and any equipped enhancements are invisible to other players. While this may intrigue some who prize gameplay over cool loot, many will be frustrated that the hard work they put into their hero will go unnoticed by other players. Fortunately, combat in City Of Heroes works extremely well, and unlike in other online RPG’s, is satisfying and compelling. Special effects from weapons and powers look fantastic and seem powerful, and group combat in particular requires a degree of strategy from each member. Characters are well-rounded enough to make soloing a viable option for several archetypes, and solo missions can be finished off rather quickly. The crux here, though, is grouping, and player groups can consist of up to 8 players. Groups are easy to find and play with, and because heroes are so well-balanced, it isn’t necessary to build a group with traditional roles. While a group with 8 blasters may not be as effective as a more balanced one, it is still a viable option, and keeps players focused on the game, rather than on the mundane frustrations of group building. In a brilliant twist, players can also adopt less experienced players as “sidekicks,” which evens the field between players of diverse levels, and enhances the inferior attacks of the sidekick. You can also create guild-like “supergroups,” and then assign officers, team colors, and more. Finding combat is quite easy, and it comes in two varieties: missions and random crime-fighting. Happily, Paragon City is teeming with criminals, and the citizens that walk the street GTA-style will thoughtfully display text balloons to let you know where there is trouble. Humorously, a successful battle will result in profuse thanks, as the citizen genuflects dramatically in your honor. Missions are easy to get, as the game essentially leads you from contact to contact, and labels those contacts as waypoints in the simple in-game map. As in Anarchy Online, missions are private areas that only you and your group can enter, and they are tailored to the player or group’s specific level. Unfortunately, missions are really the ONLY diversion from random street encounters, which are plentiful but mostly similar. City of Heroes looks good and has a lot of style. Animations are terrific, and Paragon City is impressive and colorful, particularly at high resolutions and detailed settings. Special effects are the game’s highlight, and you may find yourself simply watching other heroes battling their foes in the streets, simply for the entertainment value of those effects and animations. More importantly, the game world is alive, filled with bustling pedestrians, cars in the streets, and brightly-lit skyscrapers. Paragon City is not as interesting or as detailed as Liberty City, and relies on square blocks, rather than on the more varied streetscapes of True Crime or GTA3. The upside of those compromises is that even when the screen is filled with activity, the engine runs smoothly with few hiccups. Sound is good too, but there is not as much as you may hope for. The musical score is rousing but only kicks in during battle, leaving your downtimes silent, save for various battle sounds or grunts when your hero jumps. When all is said and done, City Of Heroes is a novel diversion that delivers a truly new online experience. Its long term potential, however, is less clear. There is simply not enough breadth or depth to make it the first choice for players looking for an extended role-playing option, and very little to convince new players that MMORPG’s are worth the monthly fee. For those willing to take the game at face value, though, City of Heroes will still offer a month or two of old-fashioned good fun. Anyone with even a remote interest in creating a superhero and fighting the forces of evil in a persistent environment need look no further: City Of Heroes is a rip-roaring delight that should satisfy even the pickiest gamers and comic book fans. 
