As I’ve reported previously, Cryptic’s Champions Online just went free to play. You can download the client here. I’ve given it a spin and here are my impressions of the early starting area of the game. Champions Online is an MMORPG set in a super hero filled city, Millennium City. Things have certainly gone awry in this city. Bugs called the Quellar are attacking.
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| Polis Kata Jangan. An ex cop. |
I started off by creating my character. What I found frustrating was that the game doesn’t mention to you that two of the classes are premium classes available only for subscribers/paid users. I went on to create a Specialist class super badass gun wielding hero only to be told right at the final screen that the character cannot be created, without any proper explanation. After some Googling around, I figured out the problem and went with a sword wielding Assassin like character.
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| Don't make the first quests in your MMORPGs quota quests please. |
And so began the story of Polis Kata Jangan, a brave hero in Millennium city, fighting crime with his energy sword. Right off the bat, the quests in Champions Online left a bad impression. This could possibly be one of the worst beginnings in an MMO I have played. DISCLAIMER: I have not played many MMOs but this is in my opinion the worse of any MMO I have played. I was tasked with a bunch of quota quests. It was mostly tutorial stuff but very uninspiring and uncreative. I need to kill how many of these insect men now?
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| Quick time events add to the action elements of the game. |
And when the competition for the MMO space is so cutthroat, it’s a death knell if an MMORPG just doesn’t capture you within the first few minutes. Especially for a free to play game, people would definitely give it less of a chance and wouldn’t tolerate a bad start as much. Champions Online does get better later past the tutorial quests. You eventually have to take part in a non instanced event(which reminds me of Rift but without the dynamic event systems) whereby you need to defend a cannon that will be used to fire at the Quellar mothership.
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| You'll die a couple of times trying to kill the first boss. Death basically puts you back in a checkpoint. |
What I did like about Champions Online is the plot of the introductory area was deceiving. Apparently the Quellar are not the main threat and they were made to attack Millennium City, provoked by some scheming evil force. Our brave hero, kicked evil butt and killed the evil boss that provoked the Quellars and peace was restored.
Combat seems like standard MMO fare, click on enemy and press hotkeyed numbers to make them die faster with a bit more emphasis on action. There are quick time events in combat that you’ll need to mash the ‘z’ key to escape out off, for instance the grasp of an enemy or some other status effect.
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| Heroes helping out with the clean up work. |
While Lord of The Rings Online managed to capture my attention for quite a while(at least until level 20), I have no interest in continuing to play Champions Online. Perfectly serviceable but just doesn’t have that Je ne sais quoi that makes it special. While some people might find the super hero get up to be interesting, but I just don’t find it enough to warrant my time. What do you think about Champions Online? Did you enjoy the experience more than I did?
Download And Play Champions Online For Free Here
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