City of Heroes

Metachronos overall score = 8.6 / 10

Avaliable only on the pc. GENRE = MMO

City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game...but don't hold that against it. If you've tried one of these types of games lately, then you know they can be clunky, hard to get into, slow-paced, and prohibitively time-consuming. You're also probably accustomed to how they start you off as some pathetic wimp who literally can't walk and chew gum at the same time and must spend hours swinging at snakes and rats before he or she gains any reasonable amount of proficiency as an adventurer. But City of Heroes isn't like this. It lets you create your own unique superhero who starts off strong and grows much stronger as he or she keeps taking down Paragon City's ruthless criminal element. The game is attractive and accessible and features big, fast-paced battles. Above all, it succeeds at bucking most of the genre's bad trends, and this is an amazing accomplishment. Yet, City of Heroes is so streamlined that it actually feels rather stripped-down in some respects; admittedly, there's really not much more to the game beyond battling lots and lots of packs of computer-controlled bad guys. So it might not have what it takes to keep you glued to your PC for the next five years (especially not at $15 a month after the first 30 days), but for a while, it sure is fun.



These sorts of omissions are representative of the City of Heroes experience, overall, both for better and for worse. It's great at what it does, but it doesn't do as much as you'll wish it did. Specifically, this game has many excellent ideas that are well implemented, but a lot of detail and a lot of the richness that's given other online RPGs their incredible longevity also seem to be missing. Recently, publisher NCsoft and developer Cryptic Studios announced the predictably named City of Villains expansion pack, which will ostensibly add some new layers of depth to the gameplay. And while the developers have demonstrated that they can introduce unique, story-driven elements into the gameworld (alien flying saucers invaded Paragon City in the final stages of the beta leading up to the game's release), the core gameplay doesn't seem like it's going to evolve all that much in the immediate future. So, depending on how much time you're willing to spend with the different archetypes, you may or may not be willing to pay the monthly fees past the first 30 days. But let's consider that point in perspective. A month or two's worth of quality multiplayer entertainment is more than you'll get from the typical game. The bottom line is: If you like the idea of inventing your own superhero and using him or her to beat down droves of evildoers--preferably alongside a number of other similarly-minded brethren--then rest assured that City of Heroes will deliver this to you. It's a refreshingly focused online role-playing experience and is an entertaining, polished game that, unlike so many others, manages to deliver on the underlying promise of an excellent concept.

looks great!

i think city of villains is better

of course