Active Reviews

Written by PierreTheMime

Somewhere in a back alley a woman screams as a pair of thieves steals her purse. Out of the shadows emerges a masked hero, clad in thick armor and wearing a scowl. Surprised, the thugs draw their weapons but are thrown against a brick wall by a wall of force before they get a chance to use them. The woman collects her scattered belongings and runs to the safety of the stranger as he checks the bodies to ensure that they are unconscious. “How can I ever repay you?” She asks. But the stranger isn’t looking for payment. He’s just doing what he’s always done. Protect his city. Paragon City. The city of heroes.

Concept: [4/5]
City of Heroes centers on each player’s super-powered character and their rise to fame and glory within Paragon City. Unlike most games where any new character will spend hours hunting rats and snakes in a swamp, any hero begins the game with enough power to fight crime on the streets and feel like they can make a difference. As each character progresses in levels, new powers become available to them and their old powers can be improved upon. Unlike most games where each attack requires a player to increase their skill in that category, each power is completely effective as soon as it is learned. This simple system keeps any player in the illusion that their character is “super powered” while still allowing for great challenges along the way.

While there are a variety of different heroes, there are also dozens of different villainous organizations that threaten the city. Among these are street gangs such as the Skulls and Hellions, magical cults such as the Circle of Thorns, a Nazi-esque group of militants known as the Fifth Column and a powerful alien race known as the Rikti. This is just a smattering of the dangers that threaten the safety of every “citizen” of Paragon City. There are also undead, rampaging robots, mobsters, monsters and many others. The variety when it comes to villains in a single city is very impressive.

Gameplay: [5/5]
City of Heroes follows a very simple and effective formula: fight evil and become more powerful. When it comes to mechanics, the game is pretty barebones but is extremely fun, possibly because it doesn’t leave players worrying about micromanagement like how many points to put into their statistics or what new pants they need to quest for.

Character creation is a big part of the game. Choosing a costume can be very difficult, as there are literally millions of different costume combinations to choose from and each part of the character can be colored and designed. After the costume is made, a player must decide what power sets their character will use. There are both primary and secondary power sets to choose from and each character class has a pretty big list of options. Once the powers are chosen and the character is made there is no changing them, so it is a good idea to go with something that fits the character and fits your play style. Fans of the superhero genre will not be disappointed with the abilities to choose from.

Combat in City of Heroes is fast and furious; a single battle with an evenly matched opponent will probably only last thirty seconds. Though this might seem too fast, the game utilizes large groups of enemies and strong dynamics between characters. Bad guys come in at least three different forms: minion, lieutenant and boss. These types indicate the effective power of the character and what you can expect in terms of a challenge. Minions are relatively weak and do little damage while lieutenants have a higher damage capacity and possibly some extra equipment. Bosses tend, even at lower levels, to be super-powered and extremely dangerous. After a certain point, each group of villains tends to include at least one super-powered fighter of their own, even if they are not bosses. For instance, towards level 20, groups of Tsoo (martial artists gone bad) will include at least one Sorceror that can “buff” and heal their team-mates and “debuff” the attacking heroes. Higher level bosses are just as powerful as any hero of their level and pose a huge threat to even a team of players. The progression of enemy power is such that although it is not required to battle with a team (like games such as Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot), it is highly recommended.

City of Heroes stresses the use of missions, much like Everquest’s new expansion “Lost Dungeons of Norrath,” that take a team into a building or secluded area to combat evil. Unlike the brawls and battles that fill the streets of Paragon, each mission only includes the members of a team. No one else is allowed to follow and ruin the gameplay, which ends a good portion of the kill-stealing problem. This is a fantastic idea and allows players to give each mission their own personal beat-down without the interruptions of obnoxious characters who are on the same mission. Even in the event that two players go to complete the same mission at the same time, the mission maps will be different. The mission system ensures that every player’s crime-fighting experience goes smoothly.

Something worth mentioning is that City of Heroes is the first MMORPG of note to have little to no inventory. Though this may bother the hardcore RPG fan initially, it becomes easy to see after a few hours of play what NCSoft did what they did. Instead of forcing players to know who drops what where and when, this game randomly awards heroes with instant use power-ups, known as Inspirations, or more permanent Power Enhancements. So long as characters are fighting enemies that present a challenge to them, they can be certain that they will receive a reward for their efforts. This system allows everyone their fair share of collectable “items” (Inspirations and Enhancements can be traded between characters) and avoids the unpleasantness of looting or camping.

Travel in the game starts slow but can quickly become fast and exciting. As characters advance in level, they can begin to choose powers from a list of universal powers called Power Pools. There are dozens of special powers to choose from, including teleportation, flight, super jump and super speed. Each of these quickly becomes a defining characteristic for the player and can be used to move through Paragon at an incredible rate. Flight and super jump give you an incredible feeling of freedom never before experienced in a MMORPG. Speeding past high above the buildings and looking down at the people wandering the streets is the best experience I’ve had in a multiplayer game in a long time. This is what it is like to be a super-hero.

Graphics: [5/5]
Though good graphics certainly are required to make a good game, it certainly does help to have them and City of Heroes has good graphics. The vast city zones that make up Paragon City are filled with high-count models, beautiful colors and huge buildings. Powers make excellent use of DirectX 9 features, especially particle effects. Textures are crisp, water and sky are multi-layered and extra effects like drifting newspapers, dust and grime add an extra element of eye-candy and realism to the city streets. Though this game will play on lower-end (the game requires a minimum of GeForce 2) graphics cards, it should really only be experiences on newer models, such as the ATI Radeon 9800 or nVidia GeForce 5900.

The game designers spent a lot of time breathing life into the city in which you play, each building contains its own artistic brick design, while ventilation shafts spring from the rooftops and electric wiring runs from place to place. Each zone, though pretty much the same overall, has its own feel through coloring and layout. There are a few more awe-inspiring zones like the shattered and dangerous Baumtown (known as “Boomtown”) and the Faultline, where deep crevices split the buildings down the middle and provide a hiding place for powerful magic beasts and mechanical behemoths. It’s pretty incredible how much personality each zone contains and how different they can be, even though they are logically connected to other parts of the city.

Mission maps range from box-stocked warehouses to alien-inspired high technology labs, all of which are highly detailed. There are multiple random map layouts for each mission, so just about every mission is an adventure. Though there are many different maps for each mission type, it does become noticeable later on that they do repeat. Even though the initial set of areas available are impressive, NCSoft has already announced an expansion to add a number of new zones, mission types and enemy organizations.

Sound: [3/5]
Each zone, usually three to five per city area, has its own high-energy theme that keeps you interested in your surroundings. These songs, however, seem to fade out after about 30 seconds, leaving you with silence. Thankfully City of Heroes has no problem with players running other music applications or “Alt-Tab”ing out of the game to work with other programs for that matter. Sound effects range from the generic punches and kicks to plasma blasters and any number of different super-powered attacks, all of which are very good. There are a few activated powers that have low humming noises associated with them that run as long as the power is active, but hopefully these will be dealt with shortly, as they are the only blemish on the games otherwise acceptable sound effects.

Overall: [4/5]
If you’re looking for a break from the traditional hack ‘n slash MMORPG, City of Heroes is a great alternative. The graphics, the music, the play-style—everything gels together to make the game worth playing for hours on end. Some people may be put off by the $14.95 monthly payment, but those who are used to online game charges will quickly realize that City of Heroes is worth it. NCSoft has put a lot of effort into makings a good number of servers available at launch and even with thousands of people playing per server, lag time is not really an issue.

Go back to the City of Heroes page.

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