Game-A-Week Episode 24: City of Heroes

[9:42 PM]

Last week, we played Moemon which brought a whole new meaning to the old guy looking into the window outside of Celadon City's Gym that says "This gym is great, its full of women!" and it caused me to have an existential crisis when I inspected a game console and the dialogue window said "It's an RPG! No time for that!" which hit way too close to home since RPGs are my favorite genre and my gaming backlog is absolutely monstrous at 105 games as of this writing. Making me realize that its very possible I could die before I play them all.

[9:42 PM]

This week, we fashioned our capes and wore our underwear on the outside as we played City of Heroes

[9:43 PM]

Yep, a superhero MMO

[9:44 PM]

First off, the character customization is phenomenal. You can select from any number of "parts" to craft your character from. So you can be a wolf guy, a lizard guy or even a mixture of both for example. The reason I said "parts" is because instead of having a selection of races to choose from like other MMOs, you can basically mix and match different features belonging to a set. You want a wolf head with a lizard's tail? Go for it! You want to be a cyborg dragon? Go for it! As long as it had two arms and two legs, you can make it. This is the exact kind of character creator I want my MMO to have when I get the chance to pitch and design one.

[9:44 PM]

There are even three genders: Male, Female and HUGE

[9:47 PM]

Instead of classes, you select a play style, archetype and two powers

[9:49 PM]

Play style is the general role you play. Tank, mage, melee, summoner, etc. Archetype is what kind of tank, healer or whatever you selected you want to be but powers is where the real fun happens.

[9:49 PM]

I played a summoner type character and I was able to select anything from animals, to demons, to robots, to ninjas. I really could make my character anything I wanted it to be.

[9:50 PM]

You can even customize your superhero outfit with just as many possibilities instead of wearing the same armor as everyone else.

[9:52 PM]

And the cherry on top of all of this: You can even customize your effects. Do you want an aura? Go for it! Do you want the ground to shake as you walk? You can do it! You can even customize the colors of your power's particle effects.

[9:53 PM]

Using this, by selecting electricity as my secondary power and turning one of my skills completely white, I was able to create the illusion of spider man's webslingling powers.

[9:55 PM]

After making my blue 8 foot tall, buff as fuck to the point she tears up the ground as she walks, ninja summoning, lightning spiderman superheroine, I was finally ready to get into the game.

[9:55 PM]

And... unfortunately, the game itself kinda sucked.

The character creation is actually the only good thing I can say about this game.

[9:57 PM]

The U.I. is absolutely terrible, even worse than Dark Age of Camelot (And this game is nowhere near as old). Combat is clicking on the enemy and then cliking on your skill. All of which have like 2 second long cooldowns. Including your regular attack. There is no auto attack so you have to manually click your regular attack when all your other moves are on cooldown. And you know what? I don't feel like a superhero when my ability to do something so basic as to punch someone is on cooldown.

[10:00 PM]

You have to manually turn the camera around in order to change your direction of movement. You can't just turn around by using the movement keys and its absolutely obnoxious.

[10:02 PM]

And above all else, the combat is just boring. The cool downs make everything so slow, I can't imagine how much worse it would be if I wasn't a summoner and didn't have A.I. companions. You also don't level up automatically. After hitting the next level, you have to talk to a trainer in order to actually get the benefits of leveling up. Think of it like buying a new weapon except the weapon is a level-up and the currency is having enough experience points.

[10:04 PM]

And it doesn't help that most of the time, you're fighting petty criminals instead of super villains. I feel like siccing my ninjas on and then electrocuting a purse snatcher is a bit of an overreaction to the situation. It also doesn't help that you don't turn them over to the police or anything, you just straight up kill them.

[10:05 PM]

The rag doll effect when you kill people is pretty funny though. They just straight up fall. Look at this dude who died doing a split.

[10:06 PM]

But you know what?

[10:06 PM]

Then at level 4, I gained the power to fly.

[10:06 PM]

And suddenly, I love this game.

[10:06 PM]

It's everything I wanted out of a superhero based game.

[10:07 PM]

Being able to fly around a city with no restrictions was all I really needed. Its even better when I turn off the power of flight 50 feet in the air and make a crater when I land because that's what I set my walking effect as.

[10:09 PM]

The story is nothing to write home about. I often skip most of the dialogue and quest descriptions which is very unusual for OCD me which should speak for itself.

[10:09 PM]

But it did get a few chuckles out of me every now and then when I did decide to stop and read it. But most of the time, it was a bore so I skipped it. And that's pretty much it for City of Heroes. Huh. I expected to have more to talk about. I guess there's just a TON of options but not a lot of different things to actually do in the game. You can be a villain too so I guess that's something but only villains would do that.

[10:12 PM]

I give City of Heroes a 6/10. It's a slow and boring game but flying around is fun enough for me to want to keep it around. A lot of people like this game and have several dedicated servers that keep the game alive even long after it shut down but I just didn't see it. If anything, installing it was much easier than I thought it would be and was actually a lot easier than most "legit" MMOs.

[10:13 PM]

Here's my hero: Arachninja who has all the powers of Spider Man and the power to summon ninjas from another dimension for some reason.