Video-game business insiders once viewed the superhero genre as cursed. This came in the wake of high-profile cancellations such as Champions and Indestructibles by Peter Molyneux, an acclaimed game designer.
City of Heroes, a new massively multiplayer online world from NCSoft, may lift that curse. This is the same Korean outfit that released Lineage in 1997, which attracts 3.2 million users in Asia each month. So City of Heroes may become a long-overdue hit for NCSoft and get the superhero genre going again.
In City of Heroes, players enter the street of a persistant online world called Paragon City. An alien invasion by the Rikti has left things in a shambles. Felons, fascists, mutants and evil corporations now proliferate, as most of the good guys were slain fending off the assault.
Games that take place in massive online worlds succeed or die on the strength of the underlying story lines, which in the case of City of Heroes is pretty strong.
The players soar to the rescue as superhero alter egos. Like other role-playing games, they can choose to become one of five character archetypes, which makes their in-game characters adept at offense or defense or something in the middle. Players also select background origins from several categories, which gives them strengths in areas like magic, science and technology.
An intuitive character-creation utility makes crafting unique personalities a simple process, while still allowing extensive personalization. Attributes such as facial features, outfits, equipment and powers are either manually chosen or randomly generated. With masks, belts, boots, gloves and countless additional accessories available in multiple colors, no two secret identities look the same. Heroes can also get their own battle cry.
Like any classic comic serial, persona development rests firmly at the core of the experience. Unlike other online role-playing games where characters run around collecting goods, the goal here is more about cultivating new powers, everything from freeze rays to flaming swords to mental attacks. Accordingly, missions – chosen by chatting with police officers, passersby and inside contacts – promote combat over dialogue.
The early forays against low-level adversaries are tedious, but once you progress to confronting gifted villains, skirmishes become explosive. Teamwork pays while exploring buildings or common areas, and is the only way to deal with boss characters or the occasional Rikti raid. Repetitive as the real-time battles feel at times, the flashy special effects that accompany combat techniques like psychic attacks and force fields effectively keep boredom at bay.
You can choose to fight evil alone, or you can join a gang of good guys. As humiliating as it might be, you could become a sidekick apprentice to characters with more developed skills. So far, the player community is welcoming; there aren't many foul-mouthed teens and crabby veterans. Newbie-friendly areas exist, and subscribers so far welcome the uninitiated. Do-gooders won't have any trouble forming their own Justice League or X-Men.
Capable of scaling sales reports and leaping tall franchises in a single bound, City of Heroes appears bound for stardom. A future expansion called City of Villains (which doesn't have a ship date yet) introduces scoundrels as playable characters and will make the game even more intriguing.
City of Heroes is available now for $50, plus a $15 monthly fee, which includes access to the game and a monthly comic book. It is rated T for Teen.
