Review: City of Heroes
by PinkRoziz

Bruce´s Review

With a stogie in his mouth, and standing just under 9 feet tall, The Flaming Joe hurls fireballs down from the sky onto unsuspecting zombies. This is a pretty normal situation in City of Heroes, the MMORPG from NC Soft.

Sometime in the not so distant future super heroes are commonplace and Paragon City is a hotspot for villains. The game is designed so that major events can happen. In the beta test there was an alien invasion, and already NC Soft is planning an expansion “City of Villains.”

What is nice with City of Heroes is you can create 8 heroes per server, allowing you to easily play with your friends. Once you have settled on a hero inspired server (the names follow along the lines of Victory, Infinity, Justice, etc…) its time to make a hero. This could quite possibly be the defining moment in the game. You choose your body type—male, female or huge. Once that is set, you choose your height, be it a 4 foot nothing super midget, or a hulking 9 foot tall beast. Then it’s off to skill school. There are 5 basic ways you can get your super powers: Science, Mutation, Technology, Magic and Natural. Once your main power granting accident has been chosen, its time to determine what kind of hero you want to be. There are Blasters who attack using ranged super powered blasts, Tanks who can just take damage like its their job (and it is!), Scrappers who are a 1 person team of defense and melee attack, Defenders who may not have the best attacks but could be the most vital member to any party and Controllers who can manipulate enemies with a range of powers. Then you select your main skill, which is dependent on your character type (blaster, scrapper, etc…). This is important because you will rely on these skills through out the game. Fortunately the balance is very through and each has plenty of pluses and minuses to make any skill set valuable. You then get a 2nd skill, which can range from another attack, to healing to defense boosts.

Once you know who you are its time to define what you look like. The character design is the best part of the game. By combining hundreds of options virtually no two characters look the same. There are ninjas, businessmen, robots, super heroes in tights, commandos, the list goes on. Not to mention any combination, such as a ninja businessman robot in tights. You choose the colors, the patters, even the logo on the chest. The only thing missing are capes, robes and wings, but the PlayNC FAQ lists these as coming soon. Also your character skills in no way determine what you look like, so you can be a robot with a sword, a business man who flings fireballs, and a cat-woman with mind powers.

While there are no restrictions, PlayNC would like players from making existing heroes, so they frown on making Wolverine or Spiderman. This hasn’t stopped many players from making more “unusual characters.” I’ve seen Mega-Man, Scorpion (from Mortal Kombat), an Xbox (yes the game system), Gabe Logan (from Syphon Filter), Spock (from Star Trek) and Captain Planet.

After you make a character, its time to save the city. You enter a brief training mission, which teaches you the basic attack system, enhancements, and explanation of how enhancements and inspirations work. Because there is no inventory you are free from many of the trappings of other MMORPG games. Instead you get to develop your natural abilities. Enhancements can be placed in different powers to manipulate them. You can increase range, accuracy, and endurance (mana) used, just to name a few. The inspirations are short-term boots you use in the game such as health recovery, endurance recover, accuracy boost and attack boost (along with many other boosts). These inspirations and enhancements can be purchased from many different NPCs using influence (money) earned from battles.

You can just run around killing groups of diseased gang members, zombies and evil worker robots, or you can do missions which involve killing these same groups in a specific area. These skills are pretty much straight forward, but can help you quickly level up.

To get around the city you have many options, right off the start you have a fairly fast sprint ability, which can be enhanced. Once you reach higher levels new abilities open up, such as super speed (think along the lines of The Flash), super jump (clear buildings in a single bound) and of course flight. In addition Paragon City has a state of the art metro system and you can take the train from location to location.

The action in the game is in some ways like a classic MMORPG, but with a lot more action. You can jump and run toward enemies or away from them to escape melee attack. You click on the enemy, and then click on your attack. If you don’t click on another attack, your hero will continually use that attack on the enemy waiting to recharge. By having a few attacks you can always have one ready to use. This makes the game feel more like an action game than a RPG which can be a nice change of pace.

Nothing is worse than getting involved in a RPG with a group of players, only to have to leave to go on vacation and to return to find you are no where near their level. Once a hero reaches level 10, he (or she) can take a sidekick and mentor them. This allows for miss-matched parties where weaker players can still play and not find themselves dying every second.

When you do die, you end up in the hospital with an experience debt. You can earn off the debt pretty easily so you don’t suffer some extreme punishment such as Final Fantasy Online.

While you can of course play the game solo, but the real enjoyment comes from playing in a group. You can simply select you wish to join a team and usually with in a few seconds to a minute you get a team invite. The game is very good at balancing characters and you can work on any hero’s mission you choose.

The game plays great on modest hardware, but can be bumped up to outstanding on high-end systems. There is lots of detail, as Paragon City is a full functioning city with pedestrians and traffic. Add in the massive influx of super heroes and enemies, and the city becomes a living-breathing place. The ability to create tons of heroes, each with a specific look, power and battle cry keeps the game fresh and unique, and its just nice to play against robots in the future instead of dragons in the past. As with most MMORPGs, there is a monthly fee of $15 USD.

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