Champions Online

Cryptic is a game developer known for there MMOs, and especially known for City of Heroes, the first superhero MMO.  There latest releases are Star Trek Online and Champions online.

Oh yes.  I went there.

I dislike reviewing MMOs because there constantly changing.  The only MMO I wouldn't mind reviewing would be World of Warcraft.

I could an entire reveiw on the hour long demo I've played of Star Trek Online, but we're not here to talk about that.  But first some history.

City of Heroes was a pretty generic MMO, gameplay wise.  Concept wise, it was unique.  Unlike most MMOs, it wasn't in space, or in a fantasy world.  It was in a normal city, as normal as a city with superheros could be, anyway.

Yeah, your character was a superhero.  You could customize them to an amazing degree, including there powers, and it wasn't just a change of graphics.  Two people of the same class with different powers could have completely different play styles.

Cryptic also released a expansion pack called City of Villains, and that was...disappointing.  The only difference was storylines and the enemy you faced.  Gameplay wise, it was the same.  There was the novelty of playing a villain, but aside from that, no reason to buy.  After another expansion that allowed people to build there own missions, Cryptic sold the franchise to NCsoft.  Why?  No idea.

They started to work on Marvel online, but that was canceled, so they changed it to Champions online instead.  It's based on the Champions pen and paper RPG, which is renowned for it's customization.

And Champions Online fully lives up to that.  This has the best character customization I've ever seen.  Unlike City of Heroes, you can make non-human characters, there's a back option, capes and trench coats are available at the beginning, and you can make certain costume pieces glow.  I haven't even gotten to the powers yet.

She tried to kill me with a ATV!  Wait...

City of Heroes has a normal class system, expect you get to pick your powers, the most obvious being what type of damage you do.  In Champions, the class system doesn't exist.  Instead, there's powersets, which a bunch of similar powers bound together.  There's the munitions powerset, fire powerset, and might powerset to name a few.  There is no penalty for picking powers outside of the powerset you choose for your character, in fact it's almost required, since you'll run out of powers to choose from if you stick to one powerset.

Then, there's the stat system.  Stats are not affected by powersets, but instead by inherent traits and talents.  Inherent traits are coupled with powersets as a rough guide to what type of stats you should develop for that powerset.  For example, the munitions inherent trait is quick trigger, which increased your ego and dexterity stats, making your critical shots do more damage and more often, respectfully.  Talents are not affiliated with any powerset, and work similar to traits, expect that you can have more then one.  The main way you increase stats is by equipping items that drop from enemies or as quest rewards.

Basically, there are almost no restrictions when creating your character.

So, the customization is awesome, hows the gameplay?  The best way to describe it is this: Fast.  a average fight will lasts about 10 seconds, a boss 30 seconds.  Unlike other MMOs, there are very few powers with cooldowns, and even then most are 10 seconds or less.  Instead, there's the energy meter.  Almost all powers cost energy, and while it does regenerate out of combat, the best way to gain energy is to use an energy
builder power.  They took the magic gameplay from most MMOs and actually made it fun.  When I first played this, I didn't notice much difference at first, but now I can't go back to a regular MMO.  The battles take sooooo long.  Almost forgot, you can block in this game.  Blocking can reduce damage taken down to a fraction, but you can't use any powers while blocking.

That being said, the battles are really easy.  I rarely go down to half health when fighting bosses.  To get any challenge, I set the difficulty to hard, and even then, that only affects instanced missions.  Worse, the powers aren't balanced that well, meaning some are too weak or too powerful, or just plain useless.

City of the future!

The environments you go to vary immensely.  The locations available include a futuristic city, ancient underwater temples, irradiated trailer parks, haunted burial grounds, and dinosaur infested jungles.

One of the problems with this game is the music, which every game cryptic has made has the same problem.  The music is usually just ok, but what's really annoying is that it doesn't loop.  Seriously, try to play a game in complete silence.  Not that fun, is it?

For those who like player versus player, you might want to play another game.  I haven't done it in Champions myself, but I've heard it's rather limited.

I better mention on the one feature this game is known for: The nemesis system.  Yes, you are able to create your own Nemesis, and it's fun.  However, there's alot wrong with it.  You can't customize minions, instead just choosing premade ones.  You can't even change the color of them, or choose certain minions for certain classes.  Neither can you choose your nemesis powers, instead just choosing there powerset.  You can choose your minions personality, but there's only three to choose from, mastermind, brute, and manic, nor is there a way to choose your relationship with your nemesis.  That being said, the nemesis missions are some the best missions you'll ever face, and there also pretty challenging to solo.  The nemesis system is planned to be expanded on in the next patch.  Or soon anyway.  This year.  At lest the start of next year.

 For those of you played Champions pen and paper, Champions Online lore is close the pen and paper version.  Cryptic worked with Hero games to create Champions.  I wish the same thing could be said for Star Trek Online...

I usually wouldn't mention this, but the role playing community in champions is large.  This, with the character customization, means that if your a roleplayer, you should check the game out.

The graphics in the game are pretty good, and they attempt to mimic the comic book style.

In closing, I say check this out.  The demo is extremely limited, so avoid that, but starting on September first, Champions online will be free to play.  This ends on September seventh.