Super Hero games are seeing a resurgence – from the excellent
Batman: Arkham Asylum to the now venerable
City of Heroes MMORPG, its cool to wear kevlar and spandex. It's fitting that in this new golden age of 4-color fantasy that Cryptic Studios and Atari should unleash their latest entry into the genre space with
Champions Online.
Champions Online is not quite your traditional
World of Warcraft clone experience, sure the game is online and supports a large number of simultaneous players, but its a different shade of massive and most definitely not as statistically inclined as most MMOs tend to be. Sure you still create an alter ego, choose a class (or a power framework in super hero speak) and begin grinding through foes and collecting power ups like the best of them but the game has a very different feel about it.
Visually the title models the comic book world by using a detailed “comic shaded” look that somewhat heightens the unreality of the experience. Its obvious that this is a game set firmly in a comic book universe. Buildings resemble square blocks of vibrant color, the environment detail is appropriately flat and it lacks that oh so ubiquitous “light bloom” that proliferates in most fantasy MMOs to the point you wonder if you just got subjected to a pupil dilation during your eye exam before playing.
This is not to say that
Champions is a dull looking game, in fact the detail evident in the player characters and the major foes is intriguing. Players will probably spend a lot of time playing around during character creation with the multitude of options.. in fact it is more of a challenge to create a bland, featureless character in this game than it is to make a character with bestial claws, a beak, devil wings and metallic blue skin. Not because the options are forced on you, but because the game has so many cool options to begin with.
In my limited time with the game since launch I've spent hours just playing around trying to build interesting characters irregardless of the statistical framework of stats or powers – visual pizazz was my immediate attraction to the game. This is not a new philosophy for Cryptic – the studio that created
City of Heroes and
City of Villains and
Champions shows an evolution from those excellent character customization tools.
Over a year ago I visited Cryptic's California studio for the announcement of the game and had an opportunity to speak with the creators of the game and see an early version first hand. The version we played was pre-alpha at that point but already set the tone for what this game would become and is at this point. While many MMO games focus on tactical combat, measured builds and statistics that are little more than veiled math competitions, Champions is a game about simplicity and action. This initial simplicity sets it apart from a lot of its competition – including the “City of” games. It is fairly evident from the start that this game was developed with a console controller in mind and the developers have not been shy advertising it as more an action game than a traditional RPG.
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