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Most Unique MMORPG Out There

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played Everquest, tested Everquest II and WoW, and I have to say...

Boring.

WoW and EQII are pretty much same-old same-old, elves and halflings running around killing rabbits until they can get to the point where they can kill wolves, then the get to go kill something else.

Wow.

City of Heroes allows you to be just that... a Superhero. With capes, flight, laser beam eyes, super strength, or, in my case, Storm Summoning and the ability to throw lightning bolts. My main character (I have 8) is 27th level, and she is just as much fun to play now as she was in the beginning.

The game is centered around groups of superheroes (how many MMORPG's are out there for SOLO play? None), so if you have at least one other person (for me, my husband) to play with the game can be that much more enjoyable. You have a choice of bad guys to fight: Trolls who were once human, mutated by alien chemicals; Zombies that are part human, part servo, created by a demented Dr. Vazhilok; gangs that have somehow developed super powers similar to yours, such as the Outcasts; or evil Mages out to destroy the fabric of the universe, like the Circle of Thorns.

And this is all before level 20! New and improved bad guys hit you post 20, like the Devouring Earth, mutated elementals, or Tsoo sorcerors and their Ancestor spirits... you get the picture. And, if you manage to follow a Story Arc you get rewards for finishing that Arc, like a special Enhancement.

And the third installment says it will give us new Epic Archetypes (high level power sets), new bad guys, and new Archetypes (available at character creation) for people who have taken a character above a certain level. It also says it will give us MORE standard powers.

I look forward to it. And, for those of you who are parents (I am), this game is wholesome. There is even a foul language filter that is turned on automatically; you have to manually turn it off, so you don't have to worry about that.

When Heroes fall...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 24
Date: October 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was introduced to this game early on this year by an online friend. I had never purchased any games that required a monthly subscription because I felt that once I bought the game, it should be mine to play. However, I was quickly hooked on this "digital crack" and spent at least four to five hours a day during the week and 12 to 15 hours every Saturday and Sunday playing the game.

If you read the most recent reviews for this game (October 2005), you'll find that many subscribers are becoming all to unhappy with the unfortunate direction that this game is taking. Superheroes are supposed to be just that...super and a hero. With the upcoming major update, they are planning on taking out both the "super" and the "hero" part and making you just an average citizen with slightly more strength than the NPCs of the game.

When the Thing yells out, "It's clobbering time!" and 20 minions go flying backwards when he swings his fist, that's a superhero. When the Hulk says, "Hulk smash!" and he turns a parking lot into a junk yard, that's a superhero. When Superman gets shot at with a machine gun and the bullets bounce off of him, that's a superhero.

Unfortunately, you just won't be able to experience it in this game anymore. In this game, you get new powers as you level and also new additional slots to put in "enhancements" to those powers. One of the enhancements you can add to an offensive power is a damage enhancement. You can put up to six enhancements into one power and that's exactly what I did with my Blaster ArchType.

The lead on this project has decided that somehow this isn't the way he wants us, the consumer that forks out money for his paycheck every month, to play the game. Instead, he is going to implement a system called Enhancement Diversification that penalizes you for putting more than three types of the same enhancement into a power. His "vision" is that he wants you to mix it up, putting in other types of enhancements that isn't needed such as reducing endurance cost or enhancing accuracy, neither of which my Blaster ArchType needs. Now, instead of having a 200% bonus for damage caused by one of my offensive powers, the most I can hope to have is 110%.

While 200% may sound like quite a lot of enhancing, keep in mind that while I have this 200% enhancement, I still suffer from a lot of defeat at the hands of the villains at my level. To "toss a carrot", as the saying goes, he is also going to lower the endurance cost of a power and he's lowering the debt cap. Lowering the debt cap? That right there says more about this new system than anything else because you're now expected to become defeated on a more regular basis.

So after spending close to 800 hours playing this game, going blind reading up on how to build a great hero, and spending $15.00 a month, the entire format of the game is going to change. My hero is going to suffer more defeat, his damage output is going to be nowhere near the level you would find in a comic book, and generally gone to waste all because the lead developer of this game isn't happy with the way that we play it.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the consumer that should dictate to the manufacturer how they are going to make their product? If Ford should come out tomorrow and say that they are no longer going to make cupholders in any of their vehicles, most people would have no problem going to another manufacturer. If Krispy Kreme were to say that they were not going to put icing on their donuts anymore, a hungary consumer is going to look elsewhere for their sugar rush. If the lead developer of the "City of Heroes" is going to come out and say that my hero isn't going to be super anymore, I'm going to look elsewhere for my gaming fix...

...and I am.

I'm cancelling my account with NCSoft as soon as this new patch is updated on the live servers and that just happens to be when "City of Villains" is released.

Purchase this game if you like, perhaps to those people just now signing up may think that they can be a superhero in the game. To those of us that have been around a while, it's like watching your dog getting older and older, knowing that it's going to pass away some day. That day has finally come for me.

Rest in peace, my former heroes.

City of Tedium

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 22
Date: March 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

People starting the game fresh will eventually come to despise it (or rather the developers) as much as the legions of veterans who've quit.

You see, every few months the developers "rebalance" their "vision" which typically results in massive changes to characters that players have spent months and months playing. For some, they can re-spec (a process in which the developers admit that they've screwed up the game so much people need to re-do their characters), while for others the changes are so severe and ill-planned that their characters are rendered completely useless.

I still have a level 50 Electricity/Electricity Blaster that is completely unplayable under last fall's "fix." And that happened after the developers promised no major changes which convinced me to pony up a few more months of fees. Never going to make that mistake again.

I strongly urge people looking for a well-designed MMO experience to try World of Warcraft, at least until the Marvel superhero MMO is released. City of Heroes/Villains is simply not worth it. The server populations are shadows of their former selves, and even the new players who didn't experience what the game used to be will eventually be burned by the developers.

They're crooks who constantly nerf player powers to try to slow progress and wring more money out of their customers. Not to be trusted.

I can't believe I just wrote that. But it's true. The developers just abused the community trust too many times with lies, arrogance and clumsiness. Stay far, far away from City of Heroes.

Does my bum look big in this costume?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 15
Date: June 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay,

This has to be one of the most refreshing online games I've played in a long time. I'm no stranger to the MMORPG scene, I started out with Terris (a text based MUD) then moved on to Ultima Online (2 year time sponge) and then Everquest (a 4 year time sponge), so when City of Heroes came along I just had to try it out.

Character creation is a blast and a game in itself. You can get your character looking pretty much exactly how you want - and I guess this is pretty important since there are no general items in the game that change how your character looks. Later on, there are missions you can complete to unlock new costume slots, or to get yourself a cape and you can spend Influence Points (IP) at any time in a little shop called Icon (commonly known in-game as "The Tailor") to change the current look of your character. It's all very much tailored for the vain egotist side of you that screams "HEY, LOOK AT ME! I ROCK!"

You start the game in a little newbie area of the city where a rather nasty disease has sent the local populace stark raving mad, and as it turns out, it's your job to go clean up the streets. Combat is entertaining enough, the animations can make you go "Ooooooh" and "Ahhhhhh" and "that looked coooooool", but as with any game - you get used to them, and even learn to dislike the longer combat animations as they tend to slow down your damage dealing potential.

So, after slapping about the lead pipe-weilding lunatics in "Outbreak", you eventually gain a level and get to go to either Galaxy City or Atlas Park to level up and get your new power. From here on in, the missions I'm afraid are "more of the same". You're asked to go beat up some bad guys, talk to an NPC or a combination of both. The mission structure itself is very good, and the rewards are worthwhile, but it's a case of "same mission, different place".

The powers and abilities that are on offer are pretty good, and early on you will usually get the powers that define your class. These powers get better and better as you level up, and you recieve complimentary powers that will round out and improve your character immensely. Eventually you'll be able to jump (or fly) over skyscrapers, run faster than a speeding bullet, teleport yourself and your friends all over the place and generally bring to bear your amazing! awesome! fantastic! powers upon the villanous trash that infest Paragon City.

And that's about it.

Nope, I'm not kidding. The game just carries on with you killing tougher and tougher bad guys, doing the same tired missions that you did during levels 1 - 10 - but with tougher bad guys and in different places, and generally spending your IP on new clothing accessories that compliment the red third eye on your forehead, or Single Origin Enchancements to enhance your powers (so that you can kill the bad guys more efficiently).

The later levels become a grind - something that I wanted to get away from when I played EQ, so I was a bit dissappointed with that. I wouldn't have really minded about the grind if there was some "adventure" in the game (this is something that EQ DID have), but there doesn't seem to be any. It might be because the missions aren't varied enough, or that there isn't much else to do besides those missions or impromptu groups to go and kill more stuff.

It's the people who play City of Heroes that really makes the game more entertaining though. You'll be sure to find yourself giggling at the antics of a few people in the excellent CoH game community. It's a real saving grace to a game that can be quite frustrating and even boring at times, but then you'll forget all of that when some crazy super hero in your group does something especially stupid or amusing that has you in fits of laughter.

City of Heroes is a good game, with solid game mechanics and has amazing performance even on relatively low-end computer systems. You'll be playing it and have a LOT of fun for at least a month, and after that - who knows? For me, it kinda died out after that time, the crime-fighting got a bit repetitive and I found myself trying to escape by creating lots of new characters.

Pros - Great Performance on low-end computers
Character Creation is excellent
Character power animations and effects are excellent
Great community
A refreshing change from the usual fantasy genre
Good all-round solid game

Cons - Missions can get repetitive
Experience grinding is such a DRAG
Not a lot to do, except missions, killing and posing in Atlas Park
Some people might not like the monthly play fee
Lack of variety to enhance your character powers, other than Enhancements and leveling (i.e. no items)

Smoothest Launch Ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: April 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

All I can say is the pre-order "3 day head start" and real launch have been near perfect. I have never seen any other online game launch with the success that City of Heroes has managed to pull off.

The reviews below tell you how great the game is, but at the end of the day the quality of service is equally important. Ncsoft has really outdone themselves and shown from day one that they care and understand what it takes to offer a fantastic online gaming experience.

Great Concept Yet Still Lacking

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: May 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

City of Heroes(CoH) is a wonderful entry into the Massively Multiplayer Online market. For those who don't know, this is a class of games that allow vast amounts of players in a given area. MMOs generally take the form of Role Playing Games where players spend time strengthening characters and earning money and items. CoH definitely focuses on character strength, but much less so on the money-making and item collecting.

This is both its greatest strength and biggest weakness. Without true items to collect, trade, and search for, the game becomes extremely simple to learn and progress through. New players aren't outclassed by wealthier or better equipped players, and you aren't left out of group play because you are missing that "must have" combination of equipment.

At the same time, however, the simplicity leads to an extreme amount of repetition. You will find yourself fighting the same basic enemies in the same basic locations, and the lure of newer and better items isn't there to keep you motivated. This can and has caused many people to play CoH for hours only to create a new character because they are bored of the same old stuff.

Character creation, though, is by far CoH's best feature. You can spend hours pouring through the near limitless combinations of outfits, accessories, masks, and colors the creation engine has to offer. Combine this with the numerous skill sets, and you will find yourself creating tons of new characters just to see how the powers feel.

Combine the great character creation with the ability to have up to 8 characters on each of the servers, and you can have a veritable army of superheroes all your own. If there is one downside to creation, its the glaring lack of capes. This wouldn't be so bad if people in the game didn't refer to you as 'Capes'.

Overall, City of Heroes is a great game with tons of potential. Of all the MMOs I've played, its has the most roleplay potential, and is the easiest to play straight out of the box. With a larger dose of story, and the rumored City of Villains expansion in the works, CoH could go down as one of the greatest MMOs ever produced.

For those entering the world of MMORPG....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the first MMORPG I've played personally. It came highly recommended from my bro who LOVES to play these all day long.
Yes. The game can get a bit on the repetitive side in the beginning (up to LV 12 or so) but that is why they have Task Force (TF) missions!!! They take a while, but the rewards are worth it. The first ten levels go by quick, and I see it as a warm up for you to get the hang of your character and the command keys. As far as the complain for "dumb character names"... a) Don't get mad because the name you wanted was already in use(duplicate names are not allowed), just use your imagination or pick up a book. b) Yes, some of the villain names are a bit on the cheesy side (Hellions and Skulls) but the higher in level you go, the more interesting the names get (Tsoo and Crey). The kind of "game economic" I see is the use of "influence" - which you get by defeating foes and saving people on the streets - to buy enhancements. Enemies also drop enhancememnts, which you can sell for influence to the local stores or "established heroes". Also, this game has Super Groups (SG). You can join an SG or create your own. You can do missions together, "hunt" for good xp or just do a TF together. SG's are as much fun as you make them out to be. Custumer service has been great. Every game does have it's pros and cons, but the pros definately outweigh the cons here :)

This is just an overall great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you have the time, you should definitely check out this game. Even though the price is steep, it is so much fun to play, whether you prefer to battle alone or with a team or supergroup. Combat is fast paced and takes strategy, something that many other games of this type lack (if click and forget is your cup of tea, refrain from buying this game). There is a wide assortment of powers and an even wider assortment of costume options that combine to let you create almost any hero you could think of, from ninjas to cyborgs to the classic character in tights. You will level reletively fast at the beginning, but later it slows down. If you want to be a powerful character in this game you are going to have to invest some time. Great for almost everyone, especially anyone who has ever wanted to be a hero with super powers.

Simple fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
1. Great character creation-its unlikely you'll ever see two characters that look alike.
2. Combat is a lot of fun-combat is still the standard MMORPG style click on an enemy and hit attack, but it happens at a very fast pace, and there are a large variety of skills and attacks to use. You have to pay attention to whats going on and react quickly.
3. Graphics-The graphics are great.
4. Servers-Loading and loggin in are very fast. In the last month I've been kicked off the server only once, and have never had a problem logging in. Loading between zones is also very fast.
5. Grouping-Grouping is very easy - simply click on the "Seeking Team" button, and within a few minutes you will likely have an invite. Groups form quickly-its very easy to find a good group of diverse characters.
6. Doesn't have to be a full time job - None of the missions(at least any I've encountered) require a great deal of time. This is an easy game to play for a 1/2 hour a day and still accomplish something.

Cons:
1. Not sure how this game will hold up after a several months. There are no items in this game - no crafting, no trade skills, no property. This game is strictly combat, which it does very well. Many people are probably using this game as filler until WOW comes out.

Overall:
This game is definetly worth getting, even if you've tried other MMORPGs and hated them.

The City of Heroes... A game for the comic book geek in you.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: August 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I came into this game expecting alot - After all, it was an idea I thought was absolutely AWESOME. Taking comic books and turning them into a massively multiplayer online game? GENIUS! I was surprised nobody had ever thought of it before! - well, my expectations were answered with greatness. I loved the game right off the bat. It's just fun! The development staff are truly creative and hardworking people, and it shows in how much the game improved with the first update, and how much MORE it will improve with the second update. This game had debatably the BEST launch of an MMORPG to date, and is looking to have a future that is extremely bright, with non-combat play and more aspects of the gameplay implemented soon. AND it will become even MORE customizable than before with the release of City of Villains (The customization level in this game has really set the bar. There isn't another game IN EXISTENCE that has more customization right now. There are BILLIONS of different character design possibilities, and with the addition of capes, that number will grow EVEN MORE. WOW, FFXI, and Star Wars: Galaxies cant even BEGIN to match it.).

I HIGHLY recommend this as an MMORPG (Right now, it's EASILY the best MMORPG on the market... Even the upcoming World Of Warcraft looks geniunely LAUGHABLE compared to the City of Heroes.) and also as just a casual game. It's well made, the customer support is unbeatable, and the community is mostly good people.

City of Heroes deserves a 5 Star rating easily. It's the best game I've played in years.

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