City of Heroes review

The mysterious being stepped through the portal. He viewed his new world with the eyes of someone who was used to being in new situations, prepared for anything. Something made him pause though, he felt stronger here somehow, more… capable. His mind went back to past worlds, where he was forced to build his strength and attain his skills by hunting small creatures with rusty spears and wooden shields or by casting primitive spells that more often than not fizzled, leaving him open to enemy attack. He shuddered at the thought.

He looked around; it was night, the buildings stretched into the dark sky, the streets appeared to be empty but sinister shadows reflected on the walls hinted otherwise. Wait, what was that? A woman shouting for help? He looked at his hands. They were glowing with some unearthly blue energy. He felt this energy spreading through his entire body, suddenly he felt more powerful than ever before. The stranger confidently strode towards where he heard the woman shout. He passed a sign that said “Welcome to Paragon City, we hope you enjoy your stay!” He had a feeling he would...

SNAP! Back to reality

The City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that is different from other games of its type - instead of existing in a Tolkien-derived world the setting is that of superheroes. The timing is certainly appropriate, movies such as X-Men, Spiderman, Hulk and now Catwoman are popular so it was only a matter of time until they’d burst onto the MMORPG scene. The design of City of Heroes is also different from a typical MMORPG, which attempts to create a simulated life within a game, where you are supposedly able to do anything you can think of and the gameworld is huge. City of Heroes focuses on allowing the player to experience non-stop action, which means… yes, you guessed it, lots and lots of combat and a smaller a gameworld.

The first steps into City of Heroes are one of the game’s best features. Close your eyes and picture your favorite superhero in detail. Better yet go and find a picture of that superhero. Then go create that him or her in City of Heroes. You’ll find that you can get eerily close to anything you imagined; the character creation is just that powerful. Being the beacon of unoriginality, I have made a Bruce Lee, Eric Draven and Spice Girl clone. You’ll probably come up with more original ideas though.

“Igor, fetch me a brain!”

At first you get the choice of selecting from five origins and five archetypes. The origins are science, mutation, magic, technology and natural. The origins determine what enhancements you can use later in the game, which are items that boost your power permanently. It’s important to note that there are no traditional items in City of Heroes; there is no equipment that fits into body slots like neck, arms, hands etc. Your progression is based mostly on levels and the powers you choose and how you modify them with these enhancements. Regarding origins I can already hear some of you say “Hmm… Spiderman was bittten by a spider so that would make him a... mutation origin?” or “Does Wolverine have a science origin or is he a mutant origin and what about Superman?” Well, he’s supposed to be natural because he is...well, normal on his planet.

But I digress; the point is that NCSoft has designed the character creation to fit most types of superheroes. Next up are the archetypes which are blaster, controller, defender, scrapper and tanker. Now seasoned RPG players will try to put standard character class names to these archetypes and they’ve had some success with it. Blasters are roughly the mages and wizards of City of Heroes, blasting from a distance and doing damage; controllers are the enchanters, i.e. the crowd control; scrappers are the melee types and tankers are the warriors. Defenders stick out because clerics don’t fit as neatly into that group, although the best healer is a specific type of defender. Defenders can stray from being healers though and put emphasis elsewhere (as buffers for example) but they are always a supporting archetype to a group.

There is however an added flexibility in creating your character compared to other MMORPGs, for example any class can choose to take secondary powers that allow them to teleport group members, heal them and even resurrect them. Also, from those secondary powers every character is practically forced to take one of four travel powers (you can of course choose not to but travel time slows down considerably as a result). These travel powers are super jump (Hulk-type), fly (Superman-type), super speed (Flash-type) and teleport (Nightcrawler-type) and they all have their good and bad sides but most importantly (in my opinion anyway), they add that “superhero” quality to your character. There is no specific archetype that is able to travel faster than others, so everyone is equal in that respect.

All dressed up and nowhere to go?

The game itself is very easy to get into; there is a tutorial at the start where the player is introduced to the main aspects of the game such as missions, contacts, enhancements and inspirations (the last two help with boosting the power of your character). Grouping is made easy, you select ‘Seek team’ which puts you on a list of players looking for a team in the zone you are in at the time. Players can invite other players to their team regardless of the distance between them, so it’s often a fast process to get a team to play with. Grouping is more casual than in other MMORPGs, as players usually come and go quickly (unless you are a part of a so-called taskforce which are long missions that can take three to seven hours). The game allows you to play solo at any level, which is always a nice bonus for those times you feel like role-playing a loner or when you simply feel anti-social and want to get some experience, but of course some classes are better suited for that than others (hint: scrappers and blasters).

After level 10 you are able to create your own so-called super group, which works the same way as guilds in other MMORPGs. Members have their hierarchy, their own chat channel and even a specific costume design. NCsoft has put an emphasis on the game community both on- and off-line with supergroups, forums, emotes (the last update created a rave craze with its dance emotes) and an easy-to-use team system.

“Mama said knock you out”

In each zone there are hospitals where you wake up after dying (actually, nothing really dies in City of Heroes, it’s either defeated or arrested in tune with the action comic book genre). After level 5 you receive a small experience penalty for dying, this penalty increases as you rise in levels and becomes noticeable after around level 20 and is particularly tough on the highest levels.

Apart from the penalty, dying is very forgiving compared to other MMORPGs. You don’t have to worry about your corpse and the items on it, because there aren’t any. The zones are not that big so usually you are able to run quickly to your group from the hospital and you have your full health when you appear in the hospital. Resurrection spells exist in the game but they don’t lessen the experience penalty, their purpose is purely to get you back into the fight as soon as possible. Their only drawback is that you are disoriented for a minute or so.

Conclusion

City of Heroes has great design and striking visual appeal, especially to fans of comic book heroes. The game is, as mentioned before, fast-paced and enjoyable; you have a wide range of choices when creating characters and their powers. Because of this most players do not settle for trying one type of player, which adds to the game value. It’s also very easy to get in touch with other players through chat channels or finding a team, there are also a lot of super groups which you can join if you so choose (or you can create one yourself).

As a MMORPG the game has a refreshing approach, but its lasting value is in jeopardy as power players are able to get to the highest level in one to two months and after that there is not much content left unless they level up another character or wait for the upcoming expansions and content patches. In its defense it’s a very young game, every MMORPG has started with limited content but these days players will tear through content much, much quicker than they did five years ago, especially through a game like City of Heroes which is designed as a less time-consuming MMORPG. But as a longtime player of MMORPGs myself, I love being able to log on for fifteen minutes and actually get a feeling of progress at any level. It is about time MMORPGs started to look at themselves as games, not time sinks.