Having reached level 16 with my main and spent close to 40 hours on the game I decided I had experienced enough of Champions Online to share with you my impressions. Expect to see Game-Pad’s official review when one of us reaches level 40 and plays the end game content. Until then, here’s my opinion so far...
I’ll start at the beginning – the character creation stage. The amount of customisation possible when building your hero is truly impressive. First up is the choice of your two initial powers. There’s the usual set of frameworks, both the supernatural (control over magic, fire, electricity etc) and the more realistic (archery, blades, munitions etc). This is where Champions Online first sets itself apart from its spiritual predecessor City of Heroes though, as it is possible to completely mix and match powers from different sets throughout the game. You also pick your innate characteristic at this stage, allowing you to beef up some of your basis abilities.
Next up are the physical attributes of your champion. You start with the basics – choose the gender of your hero and then move onto the builds, from slim through athletic to beast, all of which are also fully customisable on sliders. Once you’ve got the body sorted, you can move onto the costumes, and it’s not all tights and spandex. You can wear anything and look exactly how you want, whether you’re going for the tramp look, a historic samurai or a futuristic android. There are thousands of different costume pieces, which can be further personalised by changing the materials, colours and patterns. It’s not quite as limitless as it could be, however. For example, it’s not possible to wear a cape with a lot of the more extravagant chest pieces. In addition to the many starter options, additional costume pieces can be unlocked through loot and missions, to be used on your character’s alternate costumes later on.
After you build and name your champion, you’re thrown straight into the fight in the tutorial. This is a fairly standard MMO tutorial, pitting you and other new heroes against the alien Qulaar invading a special instance of Millennium City for the first 5 levels of your existence. The missions aren’t quite as monotonous as the early quests of some games though. While there is the usual “kill so many of these creatures and collect so many of those items”, the tutorial also has you rescuing cats and escorting damsels in distress through the dangerous streets. Eventually of course you drive off the invasion force, but you’re not let loose on the big world just yet.
Following the invasion of Millennium City, you get the choice to tackle a crisis in either Canada or the Desert. These crisis zones are once again separate instances from the open world, and you must complete the main missions in one of them before you’re truly free to explore with everyone else. Many people complain that having these compulsory crisis zones in addition to the tutorial makes the first 10 or so levels of the game boring and repetitive. For players with more than two alternate characters I would agree, as I now find myself rushing through the tutorial on my third character and facing the prospect of tackling the Crisis in Canada for a second time. On the plus side, it does allow you to get a good feel for the game and build up your average crimefighter into a hero. This means the player ends up with a champion who can hold their own without help or interference from higher level players.
You can now read Part 2 here!
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