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Gaz Williams reviews
NCSoft
- Price: £14.99
- Players: online
- Dolby Digital 5.1: No
- Multiplayer: Yes
- System requirements:
- Windows 2000/XP/Me/98
- Pentium 3/AMD Athlon 800Mhz
- Hard disk space: 2.0Gb
- Memory: 256Mb (512Mb recommended)
- Other: DVD-ROM drive
- 32Mb 3D DirectX9.0c graphics card (64Mb rec.)
City of Heroes is a MMORPG (Massive Multi Player Online Roleplaying Game).
As such, it can only be played with an internet connection and requires a monthly charge to be paid.
I feel that before beginning this review, I should declare a possible conflict of interest. For the last 2 years i have been playing a rival MMORPG World of Warcraft) and whilst I’ll try not to compare the two, inevitably I will have to.
I was genuinely excited when I was asked to review CoH, as I have been a fan of Marvel and DC comics since as long as i can remeber and so the opportunity to create my own superhero and run/fly/hop or teleport around solving crime and beating up the bad guys was appealing.
The actual version of the game I got had the City of Villains game included in it which, as the name suggests, allows you to play the bad guys but I went for the good side.
The character creation is a lot of fun. You get to take control of much of the creation process even down to the size and look of your character. There are only humanoid races to chose from, but the decisions you make about what skills and powers to have and the source of those powers seems to have some effect on how you alterations affect the actual look of your character. Whilst it is possible to to crash straight into the game, you soon get left feeling you have missed out when your standard and fairly shapeless blob begins to mingle with the other inhabitants of the world.
Once you have created your character, you get a choice to enter the training area to begin learning the skills you are going to need to survive. As with any training zones, patience is required as you read through reams of text in order to understand the different skills you have and how to use them.
A big plus at this point is that the radar and objective indicator are good at getting you to where you need to be and you can quickly get to the objectives, with out wasting too much time wandering around wondering where to go next. Once you have been given a few tasks, gained a few levels and mastered the controls a little better, you are directed out into the big bad world.
From this point forward, as with many games, you begin the long grind to max level. And it *is* a long grind and at times it’s boring, but the progression is steady enough and there are new skills to learn along the way and new powers that become available you so you always have an objective to work towards and keep you interested… expect that they dont.
As well as playing and building up my own character, I also got the chance to check out a level 40 Tanker character called Nando Canuki, a with the abilities of Energy Melee, that allows you to smack your enemies into next week with the addition of pure energy and what may sound like the obvious help of invulnerability, but you’re not protected against Psionic attacks.
As a gamer, while it was fun to play a higher level character for a while, the problem is that I enjoy the sense of satisfaction i get from unlocking, secrets/characters/new weapons or skills, which you don’t get from entering straight in at such a high level.
Also, I like doing another level and getting a bit further and, ultimately, completing the game. MMORPGs are slightly different, as there is no end as such, you can carrying on playing long after you have reached max level, as it is often the case that a new world opens up when you do so. However, the problem with CoH is that I don’t want to.
I know the amount of effort and time that it is going to take me to get to max level. I know that I am going to have to work at it and that if I am really honest, i do not think that CoH is good enough for me to want to do that. The graphics are good – but not great, the powers are different – but not mind blowing and the areas that you go in to to complete missions are nice enough but not in anyway shape or form outstanding and certainly are not good enough to justify the inordinately long load times.
There is nothing in this game to encourage me to get invested in it. If I did not have to pay a monthly fee, I would certainly enjoy playing it every now and again, but I just cannet see me getting interested enough to justify that monthly fee.
It is a shame really. After all, who hasn’t wished they could fly like Superman or swing around the city like Spiderman? A lot of recent games titles can give you the chance to do that with out the monthly cost and are, in this reveiwer’s opinion, far better.
Also available now is the latest episode of the game, Issue 12: Midnight Hour Click here to see the: City of Heroes/Villains Issue 12 – Villain Epic Archetypes Teaser Video.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.