City of Heroes Previews

Cryptic Studios' continues to receive plenty of coverage, with two more previews of the MMORPG surfacing over the last couple of days. The first is at PC Gameworld:
Unlike many of the recent MMORPG's, this game gives you a good reason to join up in a group. Sometimes things just get too difficult for you to go it alone, and sometimes you should group with others to make sure you find those rarer spawning bad guys. Then there is the Sidekick thing that I have never seen before in any other game. A character higher than 10 can sidekick another player, any level under 10 and a 5 level difference if the other player is over 10, and set their fighting level at close to the leader's level.

And the second is at Gamehelper:
The power sets include various abilities and the sheer extent of them could be compared to Irrational Game's (Freedom Force.) There's enough ion blasting, fire punching, super smashing, gravity defying, super speeding, go go gadgeting, super abilities to keep even the most critical comic book junky satisfied while plopped in front of his machine wearing nothing but wonder woman underoos and a smile. It would be easier to tell you what powers have been left out of the game at this time which basically includes some major metamorphing abilities and swinging (not talking about chest hair and leisure suits but abilities like web slinging or grappling hooks) though there are plans to broaden the power sets with future expansions. The blaster power set mainly focuses on ranged combat. So you'll be choosing from an assortment of radioactive eye beams, spraying ice or flames from your fingertips, and an assortment of like abilities. Controllers will focus on abilities that effect their environment, like being able to toss thugs around with telekinesis or hurl objects at them with a thought. Tankers and Scrappers will find themselves choosing from melee powers such as sprouting spikes from their body, conjuring blades from thin air, or even the time honored sprouting claws from the knuckles. The defender will focus on providing protection for themselves and friends with kinetic shields or enhancing their ally's abilities.