After some trials and tribulations, none of which I could fix, I am finally testing out Cryptics new MMO Champions Online
Champions is a different MMO, but good different. If your tired/bored with the normal style of MMOs give champions a shot when they come out with a free trial. The style of combat is fast pace and allows for interactive combat. Ill break down what I consider important aspects of MMOs and then ill rate/explain what CO does right and what needs improvement.
Combat- 9/10: Combat is fun and interactive. The concept is the same in CO as in every MMO. Engage your target then use your skills to defeat him. Where CO differs, is that you have to balance movement, maintain energy, and block. I know what your thinking... wait wait wait.... block? wtf like manual block? And yes its a manual blocking system. When enemy mobs are of the stronger type they have charge up attacks that normal deal a significant amount of damage. So when you see the comic style text box over their head its a good idea to stop casting and press shift (shift is my block key). These "charge up attacks" are all displayed as comic style text over the mobs head (it looks like a "BAM" or "BIFF"). There are a few different types of these attacks, some that nock you down or up, some that hold you in place and you have to break out of by rapidly tapping Z, and some that do massive damage.
Beyond the new system of manual block combat is pretty much the same across the board, just slightly varied. You have your skills your big hiters your area of effect spells etc etc etc. CO adds an energy system much like Warriors rage or rogues energy in WoW. All classes use this energy sytem and all classes use a skill called an energy builder. Using this attack lets you power up your big hitting skills and abilities.
World Enviro/detail - 9/10:
CO even in beta has amazing landscapes to look at. Their comic book texturizing enables them to generate far larger enviroments and effects that are less demanding on peoples rigs. My one gripe is that CO fell to darkside with heavy bloom effects. These can be so bad at time that it hurt my eyes to look at my character running around. So I turned them down and now at night it becomes some what hard to see, I know its dark at night but its also a video game.
Another complaint would be some character movements. The way a standard hero runs is... just awakward looking. They run like the kids we all made of in gym class. Beyond a few graphic tweaks (which took no time to do) and some odd animations the game has a great look and feel to it.
Community - 5/10 :
I came into CO with the expectation of a strong grouping based game. Mainly because CoV/CoH was a game that focused around grouping to accomplish missions. CO from the first 16 lvls can be completely soloed... but its boring that way atleast for me. The LFG system needs some work, but I can see the problems they must be running into. These problems have to be that CO has no rigid class system. No defined tanks/healers/dps classes. There are builds for each but no defined system. This makes me wonder how end game is going to shape up for CO.
Back on track through, CO tosses in a few missions where you need to team up to complete. Normally you just yell in the zone wide chat if any1 needs to group up with ya. Normally this isnt bad, but it gets old flying around the city blasting bad guys by yourself. I would like them use the crime computer system a bit more when retail comes out. Also a way to adjust mission difficulty for better drops and more XP would also be nice.
Overall rateing - 8/10:
CO offers some fresh new concepts that keep the player entertained and engaged in the game. Even in the beta stage the game looks and plays generally very well. On that note through it is a beta and I am sure the people over at Cryptic are learning from this and are making changes players have been posting about on their forums.
my general tag is kackilos and i play ranged DPS classes mainly, look me up if wana team up.
MMORPG.com writes:
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