Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
My little review of CO
Death1942
Member UncommonPosts: 2,587
ok so a little background to me, yes i have played CoH...and just about every other MMO out there
CO:
Character creation:
ok so character creation is easily the best or 2nd best in all of the MMO games out currently (depends on your view). Currently there are plenty of options to keep you busy and some new features i found awesome. Some of these features include different shoulder pads for each shoulder (same with the armbands , arms and i think boots), wings and of course capes (CoH did not have them at launch).
Aside from that it is you stock standard CoH system with a huge number of options available. One gripe i do have with the system currently is the colours do feel a tad more limited than CoH and i would really love a colour blind option :P (this may be the reason why i have a problem with it. CoH seemed to have more defined colours, CO colours seem to blend together quite a bit more). Powers are chosen in the character creation area but i will discuss this below
Powers:
by far the greatest part of this game is the freedom it gives you when picking powers. It is a straight up lie to say you can have any combination of powers as it works on a tier system. Tier 1 is your energy building powers, these ones you basically use at all times to do a little damage and keep your energy (mana, whatever you want to call it) up and running while you pull off cooler moves. You can have any combination of these but it would be a waste (in my opinion). Tier 2 is your spam abilities, these ones usually don't cost much in energy and do more damage than the tier 1 powers. These powers also do not have a prerequisite (i think) and you are able to mix and match these with the energy building powers. Tiers 3-(about) 6 all have prerequisites. These are a set number of powers from their power pool (fire, water, darkness, martial arts...ect) and for memory go 3,5,8 and 10.
so while this restriction may seem frustrating, the way that the powers are arranged in these tiers means you can mix up 2-3 power pools and still get decent abilities out of it. Of course if you stick with 1 pool you can grab the top tier powers (which are quite cool, but are not needed to be viable in PvE or PvP). One awesome feature is the colour customisation and location customisation of powers. You can slot powers (not all of them) into one of the slots: head, chest, fist, palm and that is where the power will fire off from (with different animations for all 4). You can also customise the colour of your power using a quite restrictive (in my opinion) colour slider. Travel powers will be discussed later
Gameplay:
while i only got to try out Desert and Desert Crisis (saving Canada for launch) i found the tutorial zone in both the city and the Desert area to be quite enjoyable. The zones have very distinct and fun themes that work well all over the zone. The quests, while i have seen better flowing zones in other games, are quite well spread out and are your standard generic quests with super hero plots (which can be enjoyable at times). The one instance i did was very CoH like in that you explored and underground cave, beat up a series of baddies in a series of rooms and then took on the BBEG in the final room (which was a fun fight). Powers are a blast to use and its always fun to test out new ones. Some powers require you to charge up the power by holding down the cast button and this allows you to control how much damage/energy you do/use on the power and was useful when questing around (low charge for small enemies and full charge for bosses).
Group wise this game seems to lack content. I am pretty sure there are quite a few instances scattered around the higher level areas but there were almost (we did find 1 or 2) quests that are group orientated, but even then you could solo them if you were smart. Personally i don't have a problem with this as i like to group up with people anyway and i did not notice an XP hit.
Travel Powers:
pure awesome, far better than CoH, but CoH did not have them at launch. All of them are quite viable to use and work well (except maybe super speed as some of the zones get a bit windy and you end up running through mobs, however i am pretty sure it avoids most of them). Powers i can name off the top of my head are: tunneling, flying (actually uses the wings if you have them), rocket boots, rocket jump, super speed, super jump, swinging (spiderman), teleport (should be called phasing), flame flying, ice gliding (on a chunk of ice), rock gliding (on a chunk of...rock), hoverboard (Goblin style) and acrobatics (a mix of speed and jump). The aggro range on mobs is huge and they will start chasing/shooting at you if your flying over them but it is possible to fly high enough and fast enough to ingnore this. Flying with wings on your back rocks so hard and when combined with the flame aoe power (slotted in the head slot) makes for some fun dragon style fly bys on mobs.
Closing:
ok so this game is easily CoH 2.0 and is perfect for those who enjoyed CoH and would have loved more customisation and better graphics. It is not (currently) good for CoH vets who have stayed with their game for many many years as there is less content and one or two features they will miss but hey, the game hasn't launched yet and CoH has had many years to add in its awesome content. PvP is utter crap in this game and i highly recomend anyone with a very PvP centric mind to stay away. The only real PvP to be done is duels and small matches that are basically showing off who has the OP build of the week.
Balance is frustrating in PvE currently as they have nerfed a few powers because of PvP winges (the forums were almost as bad as the WoW ones in the winge respect) and has caused some problems (like some builds unable to solo where they were able to solo the previous day). This issue is either going to get much worse (if they keep listening to the PvP'ers) or remain somewhat balanced (few nerfs...but i don't see that happening).
While this game (and every game at launch/pre launch) has a long road ahead to be as good as the games with many years of updates behind them (WoW, CoH, Lotro) it still performs very strongly (compared to some previous releases...*cough WAR and AoC *cough*). I would reccomend this game to anyone who loves super hero games, lots of customisation and silly/comical mobs and powers. I would not reccomend this game to PvP'ers, CoH vets (who still love CoH...which makes me ask why are you even looking at this game when you have your awesome game) and anyone who does not enjoy super hero games.
some tips for when you play:
to block hold shift (that first quest seemed to refrain from telling you and resulted in many wasted minutes figuring out how block works)
if you don't like that stupid outline thing (like me) turn it off in the graphics options
turn off post processing and all the stupid blurr suddenly clears up (i don't even know why games shove this in)
Canada (currently) is known to be more challenging than Desert, i suggest it at launch if you find the game a tad easy.
when exiting the instance with Defender, the lady on the left has quests for the Desert and the guy on the right has quests for Canada, you cannot pick up both groups of quests so pick carefully.
swinging is the most fun travel power and when combined with a spiderman suit, results in much fun to be had
the power training centre has 3 rooms for testing out powers. Pick your powers last as the undo button goes from your last pick down (so when testing out travel powers, pick all your other things first, then choose travel power so you undo only that choice). The rooms are pefect for testing out characters and (if your rich enough) you can test out all of the power pools on the one character.
you can fly and use powers at the same time. Use this to your advantage when teaming up with someone less squishy than you but remember, energy costs are raised so make sure your energy builder is always up and running.
dont pick 2 energy builder power
sorry for the wall of text and i hope you all enjoy the game (if you choose to get it).
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Comments
This is actually a good review. Sure the game does have some problems but its no where near how some people put it.
You can travel freely between canada and the desert btw. you just need to get back to the chopper.
I have to say that yes, swinging is possibly one of the most fun travel powers out there. Personally I like tunneling except for the fact that you don't get any vertical movement really.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
yeah but you can't pick up those quests. it's no real biggie (i don't think) it's just frustrating for people (like my friend) who went to grab both sets of quests and ended up having to stick with the first one he talked to (the chick)
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
yeah but you can't pick up those quests. it's no real biggie (i don't think) it's just frustrating for people (like my friend) who went to grab both sets of quests and ended up having to stick with the first one he talked to (the chick)
The quests adjust according to what zone your in so if you take Canada's quest and go to the desert check your quest log. Unless they changed it all the quests should of adjusted to doable objectives there in the desert. You can only kill 1 of the final bosses for the Crisis zone area and the Desert is shorter so be careful