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Cryptic’s super-powered MMO comes out strong but still has plenty of room to grow.

- Champions Online, Cryptic Studios’ first massively multiplayer roleplaying game since City of Heroes and Villains, was officially released this week but, as part of the early start program, we’ve been playing since last Friday. While it’s hard to judge a game this large after only a week’s time, we wanted to offer some of our initial impressions of the game for those of you who just can’t wait until our full review posts later this month. Keep in mind that MMOs are constantly evolving and are designed to keep delivering new features and content over months and years. While some of our early opinions of the game are likely to stand, others are just as likely to change as we continue to explore.

First, Champions Online compares favorably to the other super hero MMO, NCsoft’s City of Heroes on which many of the Champions team worked. In some ways the new game feels like a more refined version of City of Heroes; it has the same great four-color vibe and nearly limitless costume options, but it also offers up more varied locations, a better visual style and a few of the more recent MMO trends like public quests. It’s also had a very smooth launch overall, today’s launcher problems aside.

The range of powers and appearances is vast, so you’ll be able to make just about any character you’ve got in mind. We say “just about” because all the archetypes and powers are obviously very combat focused and don’t allow for any morphing of a character’s shape. Also, there are no fat characters, so fans of Bouncing Boy or, dare we say, Herbie Popnecker, will have to wait for the Fat Guys expansion. But outside of those restrictions, the character creation tools are remarkably flexible, allowing us to make everything from a sword-fighting cat to a snowman to our current character of choice, Supermanatee.

The game offers a brief but exciting tutorial that outlines most of the core game features and introduces players to the Champions themselves. It’s a nice way to ease players into the experience and it’s not long enough that it’ll feel like a chore when you have to run through it all again with your other characters. From here players actually get out of the city and can start the rest of their adventures amid the supernatural horrors of the Canadian Wilderness or the irradiated deserts of the American southwest.

But of course, there’s more going on than just this initial setup. Quite early in the game, players in the Canadian Wilderness will also find themselves dealing with the survivors of a recent plane crash, not-so-secret installations for a group bent on world domination and, for some reason, a giant floating brain. Out in the desert, things are just as bizarre with Old West-style ghost towns complete with real ghosts, discarded nuclear warheads and a host of other surprises.

If you’re looking for Champions Online to differentiate itself on the strength of its quests, don’t bother, at least as far as the game’s early content goes. Though the text itself is mildly entertaining, there’s very little story told within the course of the missions themselves. This is particularly disappointing because the big missions that sort of end the newbie experience and transition to the next level of the game are very well done with lots of interactive elements and NPCs. The difference here is that the context for the mission is being presented within the encounters and not simply pasted into a quest description.

The rest of the missions are the regular MMO mad lib style: “We need you to [VERB] [NUMBER] [NOUN].” Sure, it’s plenty heroic to rescue mountain climbers from zombies or beat up enemy soldiers to learn about their secret plans, but the whole context for those adventures is definitely lacking so far. We’re not expecting The Old Republic style story telling, but we also don’t feel that we should have to read each and every quest description to get a sense of what’s going on around us.

The good news is that the missions are genuinely fun. You’ll frequently be taking on multiple enemies — freezing them in ice, blasting them with rockets or throwing forklifts at them. The range of powers allows for a wide variety of tactics, particularly once your opponents start using them against you. The first time a villain knocks you into a group of nearby henchmen, you’ll really start to appreciate how lively and dynamic the battles can be. Of course, there are still some rather predictable conventions here, but the variation of ranged and close attacks and the different travel powers has kept things fresh so far. Like City of Heroes before it, Champions Online manages to balance the game so that your starting characters already feel powerful but still have room to grow.

Of course, there are a few places where the world of superheroes and MMOs aren’t very compatible. Cryptic’s made a good effort to smooth out the rough edges, but some solutions are more elegant than others. First, since every character comes with their own fast-travel power, players aren’t going to be forced to follow the designers’ paths through the world. Naturally, the first thing I did when I unlocked the flying power was the fly as high as possible and take in the whole zone at once. Enemy strength, smart placement of respawn points and the odd SAM launcher help keep players oriented towards an appropriate level of content without seeming arbitrarily restrictive. Even so, it can be fun to zip around the map and take in the sights.

The approach to looting, on the other hand, is a bit less elegant. We accept that you really can’t make an MMO without using items and cash to drive a player’s progression from newbie to veteran, but it still feels a bit like a gimmick here. The game allows players to loot or craft specific mutations, boosts or power enhancements that can help give them an edge in battle.

The suitability of this system depends a lot on your own attitudes about roleplaying. While it might be okay for Iron Man to steal force field technology from a fallen enemy, the idea that Superman would want to learn how to make an 8-pouch bag just so he can carry extra feline DNA back to sell to the science vendor seems a bit weird. With that said, there seem to be lots of enhancements for all the power schools except the one I happen to be using. We’re hoping that’s just a coincidence.

While it’s still far too early to render a verdict on the game’s long term potential, Champions Online has definitely won us over on the strength of a few key features. The combat is fun, the settings are varied and there’s lots of content to explore. On the downside, the story doesn’t seem to extend beyond the quest giver’s text box. As a result, you’ll find yourself consistently engaged in what you’re doing, but never really caring why you’re doing it. We’ll be digging deeper into the game over the next few weeks, to see if these opinions hold up over time and also exploring new features like super groups and the nemesis system. Be sure to check back in the upcoming weeks for more info!

Source: ign.com

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 10:58 pm and is filed under PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.