Champions Online Previews

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Written by BuckGB on August 5th, 2008

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The controls themselves were incredibly natural; playing more like, again, an action game than whatever bash-to-fit, Frankenstein-ian creation PC gamers envision when you say the words "console" and "MMO" too close together. Left thumb-stick to move, right thumb-stick to look around, and attacks, aiming, and blocks spread out among the mere eight triggers remaining. Meaning if you've ever taken the bold journey from desk chair to couch, you should have no problem maneuvering with an ease similar to your lumbar-supported desktop sessions.

"Developers tend to design the game they want to play," said Jack, "I whined about not being able to keep up with my friends playing MMOGs." The sidekick system, according to Jack, is the direct result of wanting to be able to continue playing with friends. Keenly aware of the importance of accessibility in bringing players into, and then hooking them on a MMOG, Champions Online is designed with a low barrier of entry, featuring intuitive game play without complicated combinations of button-mashing on the console to achieve required results. To wit, the play on both PC and the console has to be fun.

I breathed a sigh, half of relief and half of disbelief when I saw the laminated controls card sitting by the Xbox game controller. Button combinations for that special attack? None. Instead, you build up an energy bar. Smaller skills / attacks build this energy bar while the more powerful attacks spend it, requiring a bit of tactical decision making on the player's part as to when to spend that bar. Billed as an action oriented game, the combat of Champions Online takes a leaf (pixel?) from console games and is more active / reactive. Every enemy has a "shtick," a signature move that telegraphs so you can prepare for it. Sure, you can ignore it and hope it doesn't do too much damage to you, but you are better off blocking, a single button move, to avoid the worst of that attack.

One of the standout qualities of Snake Gulch was its verticality. There were many ways to run, a lot of ledges off of which to leap. The changing landscape did a great job of making interesting an area that might otherwise have seemed barren and monotonous.

The Snake Gulch area experience culminated in a boss fight with Annie ASCII, a larger-than-average robot with greater powers and assistants. Taking her down required the entire journalist team, but we won't reveal any strategies here, nor what Annie's particular talents were.

Though screenshots don't do the game justice, Cryptic has come a very long way towards achieving everything they sought to with their absolutely unparalleled cell-shaded, comic book brought-to-life look; it's absolutely spot-on and I can't say enough about it. The game is eminently playable after a relatively short time in development, a fact all the more impressive given that all the assets Cryptic developed for the now-discontinued MMORPG Marvel Universe Online were off-limits for the present project. Gameplay is fluid and the way abilities can easily be swapped out on the X360 controller is groundbreaking for MMORPGs. I'm curious as to how voicechat-averse players will chat if their hands are tied up with the controller, but this is a common problem that all console-destined MMORPGs from Age of Conan to The Agency and both the next-gen superhero MMORPGs will have to solve.

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