Sound:
Gameplay:
The mission system is brilliantly done. You receive missions from your contacts. They can be anything from
simple delivery missions to missions to patrol the streets of a particular zone to even clearing out a warehouse
of thugs. The indoor missions are instanced just for you or your group if you are in one; which eliminates the
problem of quest camping found in a lot of other games. When you receive an indoor mission, such as clearing out
a warehouse or office building of bad guy scum, a waypoint appears on your mini-map directing you to which
building it is. Once you arrive at the building, you and members of your group (if you're in one) may enter the
building. You simply click on the door, zone in, complete the mission objectives and when done return to your
contact to receive credit for the mission and possibly pick up another. The mission system does a great job of
making the player feel like not only are they stopping minor crimes here and there, but also playing a part in
stopping grand schemes of very powerful supervillains. Most of your missions tie together to follow one long
storyline; and as you progress through the series of missions you definitely have the feeling that you are
building up to something more grand. All of this also plays a big part in helping the player feel that in
the beginning they are a new hero to the city and as they progress they are becoming more accepted by the
citizens of Paragon City. And as they become more accepted they are given more important missions to
undertake to help protect the city. You can have multiple missions at a time from separate contacts,
which is nice for setting up long exp sessions. You and a couple friends group up, each of you grab two
or three missions and then you run around doing them all at once. While soloing is possible for most
classes, the game definitely favors grouping.
What would a hero game be without Super Groups? I mean look at comic history. Where would we be without
the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Justice League or the Avengers? In City of Heroes the Super Group is the
equivalent of a Guild or Clan in most other MMORPGs. Most features you would expect in a Guild setup are
available in the Super Group setup with one very important addition: Super Group colors. Upon creating the
Super Group the Leader picks the Super Group's team colors and logo. From then on members of the Super
Group, no matter what their costume initially looks like, have the option of switching to the Super Group
colors. This is great for alleviating the problem of people having to plan their character's costumes in
advance to fit into a potential Super Group.
The sound effects in the game are nicely done and really fit the game well. All the normal sound effects you
would expect to hear in a large city are present. People wandering around, cars driving by, it's all there. It
seems a little toned down from what you would expect, as in it seems like it should sound more busy, but truth be
told if the sound effects of every person walking by and every car on the road were present then it would be a bit
much. All in all it's very well done as it is. There are also character sound effects for many of the ordinary
actions such as running and jumping and such which are well done. The music is nicely done and done in a way to
help remedy the problem with the music in most MMORPGs. As many hours as most people play MMORPGs the constant
music has a tendency to become repetitive fast. However in City of Heroes the music isn't constantly running in
the background. It comes on when you enter a new zone or certain neighborhoods within zones and plays for about
twenty seconds then fades out leaving you with only the sound effects. This definitely keeps the players from
becoming bored with the music and switching it off in favor of their trusty mp3 player and personal music
library.
City of Heroes does a great job in making the player truly feel like part of Paragon City. The tutorial zone in
the beginning does a good job of teaching a new player the basics and getting them set on the road to being a hero
in the city. The Contacts system is nice as it really makes the player feel like their character is part of the
city, that they are known and recognized as a hero would be. And the fact that you gain new Contacts by earning
your current Contact's trust enough for them to introduce you to their friends just adds to this feeling even
more so. As you gain more contacts throughout the different zones of the city you really begin to feel like you
are part of the city, part of the force of good serving to protect Paragon City.
