DC Universe Online Review #1

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Fellow cheapskates! Welcome! It is time to don the tights and capes, and fly off into the great blue yonder! Yes, this week we review:

OOHRAH! I have been a big geek since I was knee high to a grasshopper, so this game was one that I have been looking forward to for a while! DC Universe Online is a MMORPG developed and Released By Sony Online Entertainment in January of 2011. No more delay, let’s get to the review!

BLUF: The game is a new Superhero/Supervillain skin on the classic RPG Quest driven format. Heroes and villains both complete similar quests, and there doesn’t seem to be any deviancy from that format. Fun to play and a solid game, but if you want to think outside the box, think again.

Note: I built and played two different charcters, one villain in the PvP side, and one hero in the PvE side, unlike my other reviews to this point which only tried one character type. I may try this approach again in the future, in cases where there is supposed to be a major difference between certain choices.

SCORES:

Playability: 4/5 This game was designed to be playable on both the PC and gaming consoles, and with that in mind, it does fairly well at making the various keystrokes and combo tricks simple enough to use. There is a definite slant towards the combat side if you play solo, so if you want to try a non-combat archetype, get yourself a (super)team.

Atmospherics: 3/5 This one was hard to call. If I could break the score between the world and your character choices, I would give a solid 4/5 for the world, but a 3/5 for the character design options. More on this later, keep reading.

Community: 5/5 The people playing this game are probably some of the most polite and helpful strangers I’ve played with. In both the alerts and the quests I tried that were difficult, one shout out and you’d have at least a handful of people that would pitch in. PvP was slightly less so, but no camping respawn sites or repeated stalking of lower level players that I could see.

Learning Curve: 4/5 Each power and skill set has a fairly broad tree of powers that you can draw from, and the combinations that you can use allow for a pretty open ended ability to change and improve your tactics. That combined with the fact that there are at a minimum nine major archetypes (with a lot of combat skill trees available to all of them) for each faction means that the desire to try something different and finding your niche is rewarded with a style all your own.

Cash Value: 3/5 There are three levels of cash involvement available. Free allows you two characters, and access to the basic costumes and design options, with several more that can be unlocked in the game. You can also piecemeal buy items from the cash shop to get the specific look, respecify your powers/movement style/mentor, more character/inventory/bank/gear slots, or get consumables for in game bonuses and content. The memberships unlock all costume options, all of the slots available, and in general lets you have full access to the game. Since a lot of the gear that you’ll eventually want to buy costs more than you can have on hand as a totally free character, there is a big incentive to buy in at some level.

Support: 4/5 Regular updates and fixes keep the game fairly glitch-free, the only ones that I encountered was when the sound cut out on me during some quests, and one where I had to completely leave an area after dying to allow the quest to reset completely. Both reports I filed were followed up on within 36 hours, and both were dealt with appropriately.

Overall: 23/30 This is a good game, lots of fun, and definitely worth a look from you. I enjoyed my time with it, and will probably continue to play on my own time.

THE GAME

BACKSTORY:

If you are unfamiliar with the stories that have been told for almost eight decades in the pages of the DC comic books, and on movies, TV, and various other media forms, some of the characters and backstories of the world this game is built on will be confusing to you. However, once you have moved out of your cave and joined the rest of us in society, you should be able to spin yourself up on the major players and their motivations for defense or subjugation of the world. I will leave that up to you, and the rest of this review will assume you know who Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne is, and why you should never accept any candy from green-haired clowns.

In an alternate timeline, the infamous villain Lex Luthor wins a war against Superman and kills him, only to watch as Braniac annihilates the world. In order to stop that outcome, he returned to his past and introduced Braniac designed Exobytes (nanobots that contain the powers and abilities of heroes and villains) on the populace, transforming regular people into superpowered heroes and villains. Your character will be one of those graced (or cursed, if you like) with the powers held by the exobytes, but the specifics of what you get is up to you.

CHARACTER CREATION:

There are a number of steps to the process of creating your character, but at any time up until you name and approve the design, you can go back and change your decisions. Each of the major choices will change the quests available, and how your character interacts with NPCs, but most of the higher level quests are available to everyone, so you’re not missing much in any of the archetypes.

First choice: PvP or PvE? My advice, go for the PvE until you get up in level, you can swap out any time by going to your faction’s main base and entering the Phase Shifter. Otherwise you will get stomped any time you enter one of the open world quest areas by someone much higher in level. (Did you guess that I learned this first hand?)

After that: Male or Female, and what body type? Each has three types, and each type three sizes, but none of them affect gameplay. The hero I chose was male, and the villain, female.

Next: Hero or Villain? Here’s where I was most disappointed. There really is no difference between the two. I expected that as a hero, I would have the chance to stop random crimes while on patrol, or opt to go for quests to stop some masterminded world domination attempt. As a villain, I wanted to rob banks, blow stuff up to watch the pretty lights, or at the very least mug some random civilians. (Edit: Since the initial writing of this article, I have found that you can mug some, but not all, civilians. So brownie points for that.)

Nope.

What you get is an all quest driven approach, and a lot of the quests are virtually the same on both sides, with the only change being the narration from the NPCs giving you the quest. My opinion, it’s a wash either choice.

Fourth: Mentor. The game breaks down the heroes into three sources of their abilities, and represent each with a mentor. Magic is represented by Wonder Woman and Circe, Meta-humans are Superman and Lex Luthor, and Tech is led by Batman and the Joker. By changing your mentor, the early missions and the slant of some of the later missions change. However, it really doesn't affect gameplay whether you have alien DNA or a power suit. I went with Batman for my hero, and Lex Luthor for my villain.

Fifth: Movement type. Again a choice of three, this time flight, superspeed, or acrobatics. Flight and superspeed are pretty obvious, but the acrobatics, I wasn't too sure of. Turns out, it lets you move over any surface, double and triple jumps, and basically brings you as close to a parkour master as the game physics allows. Not too shabby, and all of them have some kind of offensive and defensive power tricks after level 9. I chose acrobatics for my hero and flight for my villain.

Sixth: Power type. A lot to choose from, including fire, ice, mental, gadgets, nature, etc. all of them have two roles that they can fill, one DPS and one either tank, controller, or healer. Tanks and healers, if you've ever played any other MMORPG, are basically the same, and controllers are there to limit the number of threats to a team at any one time with crowd control effects. Deciding how you fit into a team will help you decide what powers to take, but if you're like me and don't have a team in mind to join up with all the time, I'd go with tank or healer roles. Both of my characters were fire based, but my hero came out more damage oriented, and my villain leaned towards the tank.

Seventh: Skills, also called weapon styles. This defines whether you are a melee or ranged attacker, and includes guns, swords, hand blasts, staves, etc., etc., etc. There are a lot to choose from, and each has a tree of special attacks that you can learn as you level up. My hero fights with a staff, and my villain went with hand blasts. New Skills can also be bought along the way, rather than gaining a new attack in a skill tree you already own.

Eighth, and possibly the longest part of the choices made for character creation: What will my character look like? If you want to look like your favorite hero/villain from the DC world, or really, really close, you can find style guides that will match most of them. If, however, you are like me and want an independent look, each of the parts of your character's look have options. Unfortunately, if you can't find the look you specifically want, you'll have to settle for close enough, as you can only alter the preset styles by changing the color palettes. I won' bore you with the details of what my characters looked like, just know that I tried most of the options before choosing. Also, each piece of gear you pick up and equip, even if for only a second, adds a choice to your style (some aren't available at creation, and can be pretty cool), and you can opt to lock your styles so that the gear does not change your character.

And Lastly: What is your name? Fairly simple, just keep in mind that NPC names aren't available, and if there's already someone who chose your name, then you'll have to modify it a bit to make it work. Here are the two characters I created:

TheDragonsPalm (Hero), a martial artist that fights with staff and the focused flames of his Chi,

and OneBigTease (Villain), a party girl and wild child that developed fiery energy powers when the exobytes hit the Earth.

(Comments? Concerns? Smart-ass remarks? Do share!!! And feel free to post your own heroes and villains!)

Once that is done, you'll go to a cutscene, and then hero or villain you pop up in a Brainiac ship, needing to escape. Heros are led through the tutorial by Oracle, and villains by Calculator. The tutorial is good, and introduces you to combat, movement abilities, and lets you beat up some of Brainiac's goon robots before putting you together with Superman or Lex to defeat the ship defender bot and escape. Once out of the ship, you'll be transported to a safehouse, and given a tour of it. The safehouses are all over the place, in every city, and provide you with vendors, quest NPCs, mailboxes, and a warp to eiher the Hall of Doom or the Watchtower. You're also given a quest specific to your mentor that will give you the chance to get used to the cities, how to move around in them, and how to fight in them. At most of the early quests, once you get to the boss, you'll be given an NPC “partner,” a character from the boss's storyline to help you defeat them. Beating bad guys means cash, loot, and occasional gear drops will come your way. I found that combat, whatever style you choose, is fun and mostly not frustrating, unless you happen to drop right into the middle of a minion horde, in which case, they will usually swarm and beat you unconscious. If you are with a team, they can come up in the next 15 seconds or so, and revive you, or else you will respawn at a rally point some distance away. The early stuff is challenging, but not too much so, and I enjoyed most of the quests I tried early on.

UP, UP, AND AWAY

After the tutorial and basic missions that will be handed to you, you can check your Journal for additional quests, On Duty for alerts (special arena matches, including PVP options), and basically fight crime, or cause it, in whatever order you want. Each of the quests do have a recommended solo level listed on them, but if you are not a front line fighter, you'll probably find that you will want help on missions at or near your level. Bounties are also available on the heads of characters that spawn in certain areas in each city like Bizarro or Arkillo. One of the bounties available encourages PVP action as you try to take out players of the opposing faction that are within 5 levels of you. The community is also really great about finding help with difficult quests, so if you get up in level, remember to pay it forward and keep the support spreading.

Visually, each of the areas has it's own feel, the minions for each story arc create armies that follow a motif without being indistinguishable from the other minions, and the effects for the various powers are almost as cool to see as they are to use. The interfaces are easy to maneuver and are somewhat intuitive, and the overall looks is enjoyable.

Gameplay is flexible for you to find what works for you and to adjust to the role your team will need. Tanks, healers, controllers and straight up damage dealers all find a way to add to combat, and the fact that everyone has a damage and “specialist” loadout of powers that can be swapped outside of combat by a single keystroke means whether you have a dedicated team, play solo all the time, or pick up teams as needed, you will fit in somewhere.

Teamwork is definitely rewarded, though, both for you and the NPC minions and bosses. Dropping into a group of minions without backup is almost a guaranteed way to get killed, almost regardless of your current level and that of the minions. Going it alone means no arguing over loot, but it also means a bigger risk. Team members can also revive each other before you have to respawn, potentially saving you from missing out on EXP, loot, and having to catch up.

CASH SHOP

When Sony decided to make the game FTP, they did so in an intelligent way. The cash shop allows you two main paid options, Subscriptions and DLC. The DLC includes several style options that you can unlock for all of your characters, additional character slots, boosts, and at least two DLC packs so far, “Fight for the Light” which added all the Lantern Corps abilities to mold and shape light, and the newer "Lightning Strikes” pack, which added the Electricity power set and Central City as a new map. Also included in each were new styles including “Inspired By” templates that allowed you to look like several of the characters from the Lantern Corps books and the Flash comics. If you want something specific, and decide to invest, the marketplace is great. If, however, you want to shell out a monthly fee, you can also get a membership that gives you access to all the character slots, inventory slots, DLC content, etc., etc., etc. Memberships are advertised as unlocking everything to it's fullest extent. My opinion, this game is a lot of fun to me, so if I wasn't so cheap, I could see myself paying for the extra options.

MY FINAL ANSWER

Definitely a fun game, and one that seems poised to continue to expand and add better and better options. I recommend this game to any of you, especially if you like the standard quest-driven MMO format and/or comics. Tune in next week, same flat-broke time, same flat-broke channel, to see me dive into Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) with the League of Legends.

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