Soon after a game's launch, we like to have the game's reviewer offer his first impressions to give players an idea of what they can expect early on. Today, Michael Bitton files his report on Champions Online.

In late August we took a look at what Champions Online has to offer players, and now with the game's release behind it we're checking in for our first impressions of the game in order to give you a taste of how things are actually stacking up so far. The idea of a "first impressions" would have been a bit of a challenge, seeing as how we've spent a ton of time with the game prior to its launch, but something that occurred on launch day made a first impressions article much easier. You see, for those of you who previewed the game in beta, or were even part of the head start, Champions Online launched almost a completely different game.

Before we get into all of that, let's talk a bit about the basics of an MMOG launch. Champions Online faired pretty well in this regard, many of the launcher and account issues present in the beta were thankfully absent at launch, with things going fairly smoothly on the technical side of things. Now, where were we? Ah, that's right, Champions Online launching as a different game, whatever do you mean? Well, in a boneheaded move, Cryptic Studios thought it would be a good idea to dump major, far-reaching changes onto the game in a launch day patch with absolutely no feedback from players. In these first impressions, we're going to take a look at this 'new' Champions Online and some of the effect the recent changes have had on early gameplay.

Read the First Impressions