City of Hereos
We break down and get in touch with our inner superhero

PLATFORM: PC

PUBLISHER: NCSoft

DEVELOPER: Cryptic

GENRE: MMO

ESRB: Teen

For some reason, we read several laudatory articles about City of Heroes in the same week, prompting us to finally give the game a shot. We were big fans when we first heard about it at E3 two years ago, but never got on the bandwagon once it was launched. It turns out that a lot of our game industry buddies are loyal players as well. Finally we could put it off no more, and donned our tights to fight crime and hang with the good citizens of Paragon City.

From the very beginning, creating a custom superhero is super fun. The costume possibilities are almost limitless -- and with the recent addition of capes, it's even more like a living comic book. The learning curve is pretty forgiving, and this is easily the most pick-up-and-play MMO to date. But at the same time, we kinda miss the more complex social elements of games like Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies.

Teaming up with other heroes is virtually required, as solo playing is basically nothing more than getting assignments and beating up the requisite number of villains. Interaction with the city itself is minimal, and the cars and citizens walking around are only window dressing. With the territory cut into relatively small zones, Paragon City is more of a giant habitrail than the living, breathing world other MMOs try to implement.

But once you join a super team, the game makes much more sense, and the missions become much more involved. Make no mistake about it, Other than maybe Planetside, this is the most combat-oriented MMO on the market.

But even if the fighting/leveling grind isn’t your thing, you’ll find playing with the various powers to be great fun, and you’ll probably roll up several characters just to try the different powers and variations out.New powers come fairly quickly, and by adding improvements to the ones you already have, you can change their nature in a major way.

Now that we think of it, in way it makes sense that a superhero MMO would have no monetary system and virtually no inventory – after all, most skintight superhero suits don’t include pockets.