Monday, March 10, 2008

An Alternative MMO: City Of Heroes


So, my adventures this weekend took me to places I have never been before. First, Nova Scotia (which, I have to say, was amazing! I love the oceanfront property and it is one of the places I would like to live someday) and second, City Of Heroes. Being very tired of WoW these last few weeks (burnout), I decided to try out the other MMO that I had in my hand (at my local GameStop) the day I decided to get into WoW. Every-so-often, usually between content patches, I'll take a few weeks off from WoW. I just get bored with doing the same dailies and alts don't help as much as people would think.

The first thing I've noticed with CoH is the character customization. You can make your hero look like your dream super hero. Some examples are: zombies, pirates, android, tights, Matrix-type, and ninja. There are even more choices than this! This is the BEST character creator I have ever seen! And, you can also have over hundreds of color customizations. It is just insane.

After 45 minutes of the character creation screen, you finally have your hero and enter the world. This is where things can go... blah. The movement is very stiff and your UI is big. Now, I'm guessing that there are ways to change this, but to someone who just entered the game, it is very distracting, confusing, and cluttered. Another function is that there's no auto-attack. I have to wait every 1.5 seconds to hit my "brawl" or attack button. Your other skills are used like WoW's skills with cooldowns and are easy to notice.

As you level up, you can put "Enchantments" on your spells. These can vary from more damage, less cooldown, more range, etc. It's like the new profession in Wrath: inscription. There are two ways to gain experience. You can wander around town beating up on gang members who are harassing citizens or you can complete quests that take you into an instance. For example: Go into the office building, arrest (kill) all Thugs and collect the stolen documents.

As for character classes, they are pretty basic.

Blaster = Mage / Ranged DPS
Controller = Crowd Control
Defender = Cleric / Paladin
Scrapper = Rouge with good survivability
Tanker = Your typical tank.

I made two characters so far: A Scrapper and a Tanker. I loved my Scrapper (named Aticus) but he wasn't a super hero. He looked like something from the Matrix. However... my Tanker... SO FUN! This is where the facepalm comes into play. Get ready... my super hero is... The Canadian Brawler! Hey, if the USA can have Captain America, Canada can have The Canadian Brawler :-D

The picture at the top of the post is what he looks like. A giant Maple Leaf on his chest with a red and white suit show his true Canadian pride. He also has a cigar in his mouth cause I like cigars and it makes him look cooler. Hehehe, I like to have fun with my characters. I almost fell out of my chair when my hero lifted his mighty battle axe over his head and yelled "Ohhh Canada!" before slaying the thug. You can choose your battle cry in the character creation screen but I never thought it would as hilarious as it was.

So, in conclusion, it is not the best MMO out there. Lord Of The Rings is better. WoW, LOTR, then CoH would be my top three. And just to let everyone know, I've only played a handful of hours. There could be many more adventures out there. I only took both characters to level 5 (the picture was from yesterday).

2 comments:

Overalls Nation said...

wow sounds fun. i usually use http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heroMachine2/heromachine2.asp to make my superheroes and being able to actually use them sounds better. does this game have a monthly fee like WoW? another mmo i have thinking about is Guild Wars but idk if i want to play two similar mmo's.

Aticus said...

Yes, $15. If you buy the game though, you get a month free.