Champions Online

In most games, a superhero wearing lime green spandex with bunny ears and a huge butt picking up cars and and throwing them at bad guys and then ripping the ones left limb from limb may seem like an odd occurrence to say the least. However, in Champions Online it is something you will see everyday. It is also a good representation of one of the craziest MMO games out there.

Champions Online may seem like a straight follow up to City oh Heroes, the first MMO by developer Cryptic upon first glance. But oh how your assumptions are wrong, very wrong. In fact, the only thing these two games have in common is the fact that you get to create a custom superhero and fight villains. But that’s about it. As opposed to randomly generated maps like the ones in City of Heroes, Champions Online centers a majority of the action in overworld areas. City of Heroes also offered fast-paced MMO combat. Champions Online offers all-around superhero action which is constructed around the stats and level progression you would typically find in an MMO.

There are alot of pros and cons you will face while playing this game. First of all, the user interface is a bit fiddly and the tutorial is, well, horrible. The point of the tutorial is to let you meet some of the games main characters, letting you try out a majority of things and then foil an alien invasion. Sounds fun right? Well in reality you are stuck in an area with a mass of non-playable characters set with quests that technically help you learn what you need to know so the first few hours of gameplay are less than stellar.

But, once you get the hang of it the game really takes off. The combat is great and is the best thing to come about that makes the MMO feel like an action game. There isn’t any of this standing across from your opponent and trading blows crap. Instead, you are constantly on the move lining up enemies, dodging attacks and countering critical strikes. The action is explosive and dying isn’t unnecessarily painful with virtually no downtime between battles. But the best part is that you are awesome from level one.

While action is fast paced, the game does have a tendency to over-complicate things. There are no character classes so you can basically pick whatever combination of powers you want. But once you get your powers, you find out that they are all based on a combination of 8 different statistics which are boosted by in-game inventory items and upgrades. Your character can carry up to 9 different items which have their own unique slot. Items are split into 3 different crafting disciplines. Some of these disciplines add bonus power while others change the color of the power. The concept that a majority of items have no bearing on your costume or your powers makes the stat boost not feel like rewards. It also doesn’ t help that you are given a lot of items you can not even equip at your current level. The system is a bit ridiculous and could be better if simplified with a few core stats.

Your character will spend the first 30 out of 40 levels restricted to three semi-small zones: a city, the Canadian wilderness, and an irradiated desert with two additional zones being unlocked in the final levels. But don’t fret, it isn’t as bad as it first appears. Each map is like a world in its own right. Each is packed with tons of quests for all character levels and getting around is pretty simple if you get a power like flying or swinging. The world design is a little boring but it is made up for with spiced up individual areas taking you to villainous night clubs, zombie infested graveyards and theme parks with crazy cowboy robots.

The majority of missions are “kill this many of these” and “use this on that so this happens” but they are done well. Unique dialogue per character is prevalent for each section of gameplay. Most major areas have a strong theme while the indoor areas are more short and to the point. There are also public quests like those seen in Warhammer Online. With these quests, any hero in the area can band together to complete a task. Many people will be happy to know that kill stealing is not a problem. Typically whoever lands a good hit on the enemy will receive credit for the kill. However, this isn’t the case for item collecting and escort missions. This typically leaves you waiting for item respawns and seeing another player run off with your guy after you rescue him. Teamwork is also potentially problematic due to the fact that you can not easily see another player’s quests, objectives or waypoints.

For an MMO, you level up pretty fast. But it is an MMO so this still means it is pretty dang slow. There isn’t a lot of high level content, the player vs player mode is basically boring and simplistic arena fighting and duels, and there isn’t a whole lot of social activity. A feature that has real potential is the Nemesis system, which allows you to create your character’s arch-enemy. However this feature is currently a little lacking. Your Nemesis design tool is given to you at level 25 and your control doesn’t go much past your enemy’s visual appearance and broad power-set like “Fire” or “Munitions” as opposed to “Fireball” or “Assault Rifle”. The opening mission where you first get to fight your nemesis is wonderful. However, it is quickly burned away when you get repeatedly attacked by packs of your nemesis’ generic minions while trying to go about your everyday business. A cool thing that gets really old really quick.

Champions Online is a good MMO that has it’s share of problems. But give it a chance and it will quickly grow on you. It is in desperate need of more areas and better endgame content. Yet it is a refreshing break from the typical MMO RPG and is still worth taking a look at. Champions Online is available now for the PC.

By: Zack Duncan