City of Heroes and City of Villians: Good Versus Evil Edition

City of Heroes is a massively multi-player online role-playing game...but don't hold that against it. If you've tried one of these types of games lately, then you know they can be clunky, hard to get into, slow-paced, and prohibitively time-consuming. You're also probably accustomed to how they start you off as some pathetic wimp who literally can't walk and chew gum at the same time and must spend hours swinging at snakes and rats before he or she gains any reasonable amount of proficiency as an adventurer. But City of Heroes isn't like this. It lets you create your own unique superhero who starts off strong and grows much stronger as he or she keeps taking down Paragon City's ruthless criminal element. The game is attractive and accessible and features big, fast-paced battles. Above all, it succeeds at bucking most of the genre's bad trends, and this is an amazing accomplishment. Yet, City of Heroes is so streamlined that it actually feels rather stripped-down in some respects; admittedly, there's really not much more to the game beyond battling lots and lots of packs of computer-controlled bad guys. So it might not have what it takes to keep you glued to your PC for the next five years (especially not at $15 a month after the first 30 days), but for a while, it sure is fun.One of the best things about City of Heroes is that it's not like other online RPGs. It's easier to get into, it's faster, and often times, it's simply more enjoyable.The best thing about City of Heroes is that it genuinely offers the thrill of discovery--something that is fundamentally uncommon in gaming, since most games are closely modeled on established genres. Actually, much of this thrill may be derived from the game's elaborate, extremely entertaining character-creation process, which allows you to craft a convincing replica of any of the most famous (and not-so-famous) superheroes in the Marvel and DC canon. As well, there's a good chance you can rip off the look of your favorite video game character or Hollywood action hero. However, you can always come up with something completely off-the-wall and original, if you'd prefer.There are tons of different face masks, outfits, body types, little frills, and colors to choose from, and the consequence is that most all the player characters running around in City of Heroes look truly unique. After a while, you'll learn to pick out the discrete elements that make up each character. For instance, you can make a cigar-chomping cowboy with huge, robotic arms and medieval armored leggings, but you might see some less-ridiculous characters running around sharing some of the same details or body parts. And while you can make everything from huge, sinister-looking robots to slinky gals in hot pants, it must be noted that the difference between any two characters sometimes tends to be only skin-deep (or skin-equivalent-deep). Furthermore, there's a shocking omission: There are no capes. You'll see guys that look just like Superman and Batman running around, capeless. That's just wrong.Even though it doesn't affect gameplay, choosing your appearance is very important, because once you settle on it, it's not going to change during the course of your character's existence (for the time being, anyway). That's actually one of the problems with the game. In most online RPGs, a character's experience is readily apparent, at-a-glance, due to the elaborateness of his or her armor or weapons or something similar. In City of Heroes, you'll be able to discern higher-level heroes by their abilities to fly, teleport, superjump, and so on, but all heroes are created equal-looking.The open-ended character-creation system lets you completely rip off your favorite superheroes, and it lets you make incredibly strange creations of your own.The most important decision you make when creating your character is your choice of superhero archetype, of which there are five. There's the blaster, a ranged specialist; the tanker, an extremely hardy melee fighter; the scrapper, a fast and powerful close-range combatant; the defender, who provides healing and support; and the controller, who provides crowd control and support. Within these five archetypes, there are a variety of distinctive options. As a result, you'll choose one respective option from a variety of primary and secondary skill paths. So, for example, you can be a blaster who specializes in assault rifles and fire spells, a scrapper who specializes in broadswords and regenerative skills, or a controller who specializes in gravitational forces and radiation. All in all, you'll be able to use this open-ended system to create a wide variety of interesting, multi-talented characters whose powers are either plausible within the context of a superhero game or are just utterly absurd--which is cool too.The character combinations are extensive and fun to experiment with, but they are limited. And, once you settle on your starting choices, you're stuck with them. Indeed, as you gain experience levels from fighting and are prompted to choose new skills or are prompted to choose different abilities to enhance, you'd better make your choices count, because there's no going back after you make them. Fortunately, there aren't many "wrong" choices to be made here. All the archetypes are desirable in groups (blasters are especially common in the game, though), and there are clear, concise descriptions available for all the skills in the game, so you can plan your character out in advance to avoid those skills that don't sound compatible with your playing style. Invariably, you'll get "class envy" and will want to try out a completely different character from the one you've been playing, but that's where a lot of the fun in City of Heroes comes from.Fortunately, the combat works very well. One of the great things about City of Heroes is that it effectively allows for some very large and dynamic skirmishes. The various effects of different weapons are attractive, powerful-looking, tactically significant, and easily distinguishable. Your enemies, meanwhile, exhibit some shred of intelligence sometimes (they'll try to flee when overwhelmed, or they'll try to flank you when they outnumber you, for instance), which is more than can be said of enemies in most such games. Another nice touch is that you'll encounter your foes in context. Thugs can be seen mugging civilians or loitering by parked cars, sinister magicians can be found conducting bizarre rituals, mutant fiends can be found plotting Paragon City's destruction, and so on.Player groups may consist of up to eight players, which is larger than average. Enemies are rarely fought one at a time and, instead, tend to congregate in large packs, sometimes of around a dozen or two. Characters of all archetypes learn a variety of useful combat abilities that can affect multiple enemies in an area of effect, debilitate or incapacitate opponents, effectively finish off fleeing foes, cause dissension in enemy ranks, and more. Managing a full party's worth of these diverse and interesting powers isn't a chore, but balanced groups of players who plan carefully will be able to defeat much stronger opponents than usual, resulting in a faster gain of experience levels. In City of Heroes, you want to keep leveling up. The pace of level gain noticeably slows down after about the 10th level, but by then, you'll have a significant variety of powers to use in battle, which should help keep you involved in the proceedings.Your character begins with several basic skills, so things start simple. You have health points, which you lose as you take damage, and you have endurance points, which are drained as you use your skills. More-powerful skills tend to cost more endurance and take longer to recharge between uses, so you'll need to manage your endurance bar during prolonged encounters (and between them). There tends to be little downtime between fights, though characters all have a rest skill that lets them quickly regain all their health and endurance, and inspirations (which are frequently earned from defeated foes) can be used to instantly restore large amounts of either resource.City of Heroes lacks a lot of community-oriented features, such as auctioning, trade skills, and player-versus-player combat, which give many other online RPGs some of their lasting appeal.The game's interface is clean, simple, streamlined, and functional. It's intuitive to learn and great to use. Finding player groups is extremely easy. Just toggle the button to indicate that you're looking to join a team, and chances are that someone from among the game's already-dense player population will send you an invite moments later. There's no pretense in City of Heroes. Quick greetings and curt good-byes are exchanged as players come and go, and there's a common understanding that teamwork in the game is both for fun and for gain but not necessarily for complication or drama. For the occasional bouts of genuine social interaction, City of Heroes offers some clever provisions, such as the ability to play rock-paper-scissors or flip a coin to settle a dispute.In other online RPGs, you might argue with your group over who should get to take the loot from a slain beast. But, apart from inspirations and skill enhancements, there's no inventory and no looting in City of Heroes. This is a calculated design choice that yields mixed results; as mentioned, the bad part is that your character won't get to show off any hip, new equipment. But the good part is that game play is completely alleviated of the petty squabbles common in other online RPGs. You do earn "influence" in City of Heroes, which basically serves as money, and you can use it to buy enhancements or inspirations from merchants, although this isn't necessary. City of Heroes' characters are entirely self-reliant. So be your own hero and go save the day yourself!

Ok heres the deal. If you like comic books and comic book super heroes then you will probably like this game....for a while. The character creation is unmatched by any game I have ever seen. Every person I know that plays it and many that have never actually played the game enjoyed the creation process that often can take several hours out of your day. There are thousands of possibilities in creating your super heroes look which is exciting but daunting.As for game play...I started playing CoH years ago because I wanted to fly. Its that simple. I loved the idea of going flying over the top of the city, swooping down, beating up bad guys and flying away again.This is still the main reason I play. I love to fly.Graphics wise, it is not bad, its not too tough on computers, its got some fun factor to it for the first 20 levels. After 20 levels it seems to become very repetative to the point of boredom. You will get tired of the same city zones and defeating the same types of villians and then you get a new city and its fun for 3-4 levels and then it becomes boring again and then you get to a new city and its great.The story archs are often long drawn out reads that mean nothing.In my opinion there is no greater fun than flying, except when an alien invasion occurs and you and 50 other heroes from around the world that you do not know are in the streets defending the city. It is an awesome battle and a really neat scene.Grouping is easy, no matter which of my 20 characters I play I always have group invites.The "missions" you do are ok.The zones/dungeons you do your missions in are cool until you have done it them the millionth time.Overall I reccomend it.

If there's anything you need to know about this game it's how great it's customizability is. You can make your character look like anything you can imagine (Champions Online tried to copy this to an extent but falls way short of what's possible in this game). You're also given up to 5 different costumes you can make for each character, which you can switch back and forth from at will.The gameplay is very fluid & fun. I would describe it as a hybrid of an old-school side scroller (it is fully 3D though) + a classical RPG. It has all the action fun you can stand + lots and lots of story if you want (though you're not required to know any of it to progress).I bought this version for the collectibles, but any version you get now allows you access to City of Heroes and City of Villains. It comes with a free month of time as well, so it's almost free if you consider that a month is normally $[...] (Amazon usually sells 60 day "PlayNC" cards for less per month though).With issue 17 (they name their game updates issues, like comic books) they introduced "Ultra Mode" which was a major graphical update and really makes the game shine now. It looks better than most new games & way better than the majority of MMO games out there.This game is a bargain considering the amount of fun & content it offers.