City of Heroes Preview

GameShark has put together a preview of City of Heroes, the newly released superhero MMORPG from Cryptic Studios. Check it out:
The mission system of City of Heroes isn't earth shattering in its originality. After all, mission systems have been around since the inception of the text based days of MMORPGs. However, City of Heroes puts an excellent spin on the traditional system with some very cool and very authentic features. In keeping with its comic book theme, the missions your hero acquires come from Contacts. Contacts are those with their ears to the ground and who know what is really going down in Prometheus Park. Contacts can be doctors, scientists, policewomen and men or just common business people. Each contact, as you might expect, essentially covers a particular area of information such that a scientist would know about science based crime and a businesswoman would know when a factory had been taken over by a gang.

At least initially, your mission will reflect your origin. If your character has a Technology based Origin, they will get Technology based missions and find themselves going up against the machinations of the Clockwork gang. Perhaps your character is Science based and you will find yourself slogging through the chemical waste of the city's sewers to battle the reanimated corpses of a mad scientist. The themes fit very well but do not stagnate. Your character will also see missions to break up common street crime from the Hellions and at least a dozen other organizations. After all, how often did Superman whoop ass on the Riddler?