Champions Online

Champions Online

Summary: Decent Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMO) with an excellent character build and design system that fails at only one thing: the game play. There are so many good things about this game that it is disappointing to give the sucks rating, but when you factor in the cost of the monthly subscription, the developer miscues, the lack of teamplay dynamics, the broken melee system and the limited roleplaying that this MMO offers, we simply believe this game sucks. With some caveats for the developers to give the game some mojo and work on the mission design and teaming structure, we give this a sucks rating. Do not buy it.

Overview: Your hero begins the game saving the world from an alien invasion through the mastery of your powers. The tutorial is well done and a good intro to the potential of the game. You learn that the world is a very unsafe place with evil masterminds, mutants, aliens, underworld bosses and general mayhem that needs to be tended to by a serious pummeling.

The real star of this game is the character creation system, which is the best of any game we have seen to date. This is a very very deep game, with multiple frameworks or power trees and build potentials that align with some archetypal character builds recognizable from other games. Builds range from ninjas to necromancy, spellcasting to gunslingers, and everything in between.

In fact I was able to build virtually every kind of character I wanted, from a tank to a crowd control maniac, and be able to design the physical look to match. Custom framework options exist where the individual chooses across all powers to create one’s own version of a superhero. This game follows the Health/Energy archetype for character survival and power usage, with one initial power reserved for energy generation. Additional effects for energy and health generation based on combinations and synergies of powers or power traits are earned later in the game. We continue to marvel at the system they created, and to anyone who loves tweeking stats and optimizing builds, this game’s character build tool is a wonder to behold.

The second star of this game is the map and environment design, and how the developers rendered the visuals and effects in the game. The game environment is at times mesmerizing, as if you just walked into a comic book frame and turned on the switch. The various maps, from pristine neighborhoods in a shining city to sewers, swamps, snowy mountains, deserts, caves and urban decay (and yes even underwater), are really well done. The various monsters, villains and minions are also well rendered with good story lines and great tie-ins to the character build system. The music soundtrack is very complementary and adds a lot to the game experience. The maps are huge and sprawling, providing many types of environments and the travel system allows the individual gamer to choose how to experience this game world, from superspeed, to teleport, superjump, rocket packs and multiple variations on these powers. The developer did almost everything right, and we love the intensity and care that was taken to represent the world of comic books in a fresh and respectful way.

This is a mission based game system, where a hero, mission database or emergency beacon calls you to action. You can choose to do some missions, but not others, and in general the missions are generated to move you from map area to map area as your character levels and gains more and more powers. As you level, you return to base and go to the Powerhouse and choose your next skill. Before finalizing a skill selection, you can test out combinations, remove certain powers at a cost, and even respec your character from scratch when a respec is given or earned. The developer-provided forum is a great resource for info on what power synergies complement each other and how one might grow your ‘toon.’ You also have choices for PvE (Player versus Enemy) and PvP (Player versus Player) in an arena format that at first is really fun , and does force a gamer to consider the various differences in a build to win at either pummeling enemies in game or other players in the arena. Again the developers did almost everything right in the game. But that’s the rub. Almost is the operative word.

Great. I have a build I like. Now what? So how does this all work together in the game? Not great as it turns out. The developers tried something new in the game to mixed results: there is no penalty for dying in this game. And no, that is not a misprint. This developer choice does something really strange in the game – there is no benefit to teaming or optimizing a certain type or role within the game.

Support roles are not given the benefit of the experience for crowd control or healing that one usually expects, tanks are underpowered, and spellcasters and area effects are too powerful to ignore, considering that there are many ways to seriously juice up your health points for typically squishy character types. There is little reason to play with others on a team, the communication isn’t important, and the supergroup or clan becomes a sort of trading group of sorts for a very ineffective crafting and item/trait upgrade system.

All the pieces of a superior title are already in the game, but the gameplay devolves into simply optimizing the build of your character and grinding through to the next level to upgrade again. This is a classic problem – if you can be anything, your choices don’t matter, and that means relationships and other players in the game don’t really matter. Some people will play this and enjoy the build/optimize part of the game, but for us at gamingforgeezers.com, we need more than tweeking builds to continue playing, especially considering the monthly subscription cost for the game. So what do you get for paying monthly anyway?

Really? You just nerfed me…again? Like most MMOs, the game develops optimized builds by dedicated players who really get into the game. The depth of combinations of assembling a power tree means your choices for your character number in the millions. Unfortunately, the developers reward this love by changing power characteristics and synergies at will. More than once we have had carefully crafted builds completely destroyed by the developers, who simply don’t understand that the players have put a serious amount of time into leveling up a character and researching a build that works and is fun to play. This happened so many times in the first 6 months of the game release that we seriously believe that the game lost a large potion of its initial committed audience.

What you should be paying for with a subscription service is new content and mission maps, and some of this has happened. But the “power balancing” in the game continues even now, and new material doesn’t come out regularly enough to justify the monthly subscription. The lack of consistency is really troubling, especially to a gamer who may casually play once or twice a week, only to have your current character build balanced into oblivion.

The power balancing has also shifted the melee (punching, swords and weapon powers) to a point where it is not very fun to play. Due to the extreme power of area effects later in the game, unless these types of melee builds choose similar area of affect powers, your superhero is toast. And since the teaming function doesn’t drive players to team up or optimize their ‘toon’ to a specific role to survive, what’s the point of even choosing a tank build if you can’t make it past even a group of minions. This also forces a power imbalance in the PvP arenas, with some builds really overpowered, leaving very limited reasons to even enter the PvP arena.

In the end the gameplay is a letdown and repetitive, not due to the game design, but due to developer choices. We still believe that this issue is a solvable problem, but the developers have burned their chances with their audience to shift the game with really dumb decisions early on in the release, and limited continued commitment to new content. We hope this changes.

Methodology Summary:

Excellent On Line Gaming Experience: No

Success in game play through teamwork and smarts: No

Complementary Single Player Experience: No

Involves Shooting Someone: Yes

Can be played over and over: Yes

Playable by a geezer who has a life and other obligations? Yes

Conclusion: Amazing character generation tools, great environments, compelling missions, but in the end the gameplay really suffers from some simple miscues by the developers, the lack of team dynamics, the broken melee system and undefined role-playing aspects of the game. Unfortunately, the cost of the monthly subscription does not justify playing this game over time.

Publisher: Atari

Developer: Cryptic

Release Date: September 2009

Best FAQ/Guide Site: IGN at http://guides.ign.com/guides/14243516/page_2.html

Price as of this Article: $19.99 for initial purchase

$14.99 Monthly subscription, or

$59.99 for 6-months, or

$199.99 for Lifetime subscription