About a month before this superhero MMORPG was first announced I was internally pitching a nearly identical game called, coincidentally, "Earth City". So I've been anxiously waiting to give this one a try for some time now.

I'm in the Beta at the moment (pre-ordered at EBX) and I think the game is supposed to ship at the end of this month. Although I've only been playing for about a week I gotta say, "This game is a geek's dream come true!" I'm not going to take the time to write up a full review, but here are some early highlights:

1. The character creation stuff is unbelievable. You can make almost any kind of two legged hero that you like. Classic heroes, robots and cyborgs, medieval knights, goofy heroes, pig tailed school girls (ala Sailor Moon), Thing-like rock creatures, and more.

2. The graphics are excellent. Last night I watched a group of heroes fighting in an abandoned mine and for an MMORPG it was jaw droppingly impressive. The particle effects were spectacular! Fireballs, lightning, people splashing through puddles, energy blasts, etc. All happening at the same time. (This was a bunch of level 5 characters, I suspect the effects are even better at higher levels.)

3. The game makes you feel... well... heroic! No more fighting rats with a practice sword (and getting killed by them). Most fights are against multiple enemies, and once you get your powers up, there are bodies flying everywhere.

4. Cryptic Studios has come up with a very clever "sidekick" feature. Generally, in an MMORPG, a level 5 gamer can't fight alongside a character that is more than a few levels higher. This means that friends often outlevel each other and then they can no longer group. But in City of Heroes this isn't a problem because higher level characters can turn lower level characters into sidekicks. The sidekick temporarily gets a boost in his or her stats to better survive against the tougher creatures! (They have to stay together, or the effect wears off.) Very very cool.

5. There are some really fun "powers". Super jump allows players to leap over (or onto) buildings. Alternately, players can learn to hover, and eventually fly. Or they can get around the world by teleporting themselves or other players. A friend of mine got knocked off the roof of a 60 story building the other day and one of his groupmates teleported him back to the group safely before he hit the ground! Naturally there are tons of offensive and defensive powers, as well.

6. This may change as more players join the servers after release, but the game runs like a champ. I've had very little lag, particularly in the instanced mission areas. There were six guys in that abandoned mine taking on nearly a dozen bad guys and even with all the particle effects the frame rate never seemed to waver. (I have a Radeon 9800 card and a decent computer, but this game runs faster with more going on than just about any other 3D game I have tried.)

POSSIBLE NEGATIVES: I'm a little worried about the longevity of the game. It doesn't seem to have a lot of those addictive elements that make games like Everquest so hard to stop playing. But maybe that's a good thing. Those damn "carrots" in EQ made me play that game LOOOOOONG after it stopped being fun.

Anyway, if you like superhero games, or MMORPGS, you should at least check it out: www.cityofheroes.com

I'm in the beta also. I haven't been playing nearly as much as I would like to though because I've been so busy. I agree with you on most points. The character creation is awesome, but it's missing some important things (capes...) The graphics are great and the realtime fighting is a lot better than your standard MMORPG autofight.

POSSIBLE NEGATIVES: I'm a little worried about the longevity of the game. It doesn't seem to have a lot of those addictive elements that make games like Everquest so hard to stop playing. But maybe that's a good thing. Those damn "carrots" in EQ made me play that game LOOOOOONG after it stopped being fun.

You miss an utterly shallow gameplay element that do nothing but add to the addiction level and leave you feeling hollow inside when you finally achieve it because you know you didn't really do anything impressive?

My wife just bought the game. Guess I won't be seeing her much for a while. :)

I had really hoped people were going to tell me that this game sucked... I guess I just have to not go to Best Buy for a few months to protect myself from myself. :)

I'd read about the side kick idea, and it is a very neat solution to the problem of having to have friend level up before they can play with you.

Fortunately, the market trounced me yesterday (Nortel) so I have a little less cash to spend. Once I start trading futures though, I'll have all kinds of cash to spend on mmo's, or I'll be living in a box. :)

Jeff

I guess I just have to not go to Best Buy for a few months to protect myself from myself.

There's an interesting point -- I'm surprised that MMORPGs are using the "up-front-cost" model as opposed to the "free trial" model. I'm sure much has been written on the topic, but given the enormous number of such games available (http://vnboards.ign.com/default.asp), I'd think many such games would do just the opposite. Jeff shouldn't have to drag himself to Best Buy to begin his addiction -- he should get the first month for free.

Are MMORPG publishers expecting to make the bulk of their money from the $49.95 trial?

agree 100%. Im keen on this game, but without a demo theres no way im spening £35 to see if this game is any good. give me a demo, even a free day of gameplay, then Ill probably hand over the money. Paying a monthly fee is fine if the games good. but with no demo...?

Originally posted by cliffski
agree 100%. Im keen on this game, but without a demo theres no way im spening £35 to see if this game is any good. give me a demo, even a free day of gameplay, then Ill probably hand over the money. Paying a monthly fee is fine if the games good. but with no demo...?
I'm thinking that before it's over most of these games will be downloaded and free to try for a month. They may have $20-$30 monthly fees by then, but there won't be a retail version.

looks like you cant even buy it in the UK at the moment, byut the time its out ill have spent my money on cossacks II or Thief.

You can buy it download-only. We already have. :)

Which is something of a problem. See, I've always avoided 3d games and swore I hate 3d and it makes me ill and all that. I've honestly never played a WASD setup before. Ever. So now I'm trying CoH, being bullied into it... and it actually *does* make me ill.

Which sucks, because I enjoy parts of the game, but it's hard to keep playing when the experience causes this crazy headache that's like nothing I've ever felt before to appear within minutes of starting to play.


As for the addictive elements - you have a million character slots, and you keep thinking of new characters you want to build. The character designer is MORE obssessive than the game. People would pay for it on its own. :) I admit logging in again today just to make Seven of Nine...

My wife got me hooked on the game over the weekend, and now we both own copies. We're both level 8 characters and play with a couple friends in the evening. It's actually a really fun game, and the teamwork between different superheroes is very fun. Fighting a pack of enemies with a large group of heroes is quite a visual fx show. Fortunately I just upgraded my PC a few weeks ago (Athlon XP 3200, 1GB RAM, GeForce4 Ti 4800 video card), so it runs very smoothly in high res.

I think the game is a bit boring to play solo -- it's really geared towards playing with a team, and that's where it's the most fun. As you level up, you can gain new superpowers -- leap tall buildings, fly, teleport, etc.

I used to play the Heroes Unlimited pen and paper RPG system, and this reminds me a lot of that kind of experience.

I really miss the pen-n-paper RPG days :(

Cas :)

*Miss* them? Where did you lose them?

If a year of your life passes by without having trekked off to a gaming convention to get not enough sleep, eat bad food, and game with total strangers in crowded noisy smoke-filled rooms, your life is empty! :)

(Sadly, UK Cons are a lot less interesting than US cons. More gaming gets done, which is good. Fewer girls are running around in exotic costumes, which is bad.)