So this post is all about first impressions, those that I made and those I feel safe in assuming many people who have similar backgrounds playing MMOs will share. Bear in mind this first post is more of a general summary of game engine and design, and that impressions made of specific powersets and events will be soon to follow. That said, this post won't contain any spoilers so read on!
Presentation
- Graphics – Its actually pretty surprising to me that there have been a few complaints about the game's graphics on community forums. I've always thought that cell shading techniques are the way to go for video games that aim to capture a comic book look. It's nice to see the colorful settings and characters, especially in a time when much of the next-gen gaming technology is spent making the uber-realistic visuals, IE the lovable combo of 'Mud Brown' and 'Snot Gray' coloring scheme. The amount of work and detail Cryptic put into their color schemes and shading also come across, so I'm quite pleased with all of the game's visuals thus far.
- Music/SFX – As far as the aesthetics go, this is probably the department I was least impressed with. Which isn't to say that the sound in the game is bad really, just lackluster. The effects are adequate and about what you would expect. Helicopters sound like helicopters and a mutant being drop kicked in the face sounds like a mutant getting drop kicked in the face (Or so I would imagine). What is a little disappointing is the background music in the game. The fact that I can't now recall anything at all of the music in most of the major quest hub zones means that if there was any at all, it didn't make any kind of impression. There's some ominous tunes playing in the instanced 'dungeon' areas I went through, but the fact that I do remember them is a far step from saying they were enjoyable or even decent.
- Narration/Voice-Acting – The voices in the game get the job done. Like most MMO's I'd hardly expect astounding voice acting for every little henchman I come across. That said, both narration and the voices for some of the more substantial hero NPCs and enemies come across pretty well. Sure theres a lot of it that's pretty corny, but I choose to see it as an authentic portrayal of comic sensationalism and not as any shortcomings on the actor's part.
Depth
- Customization – Now this is where it's at. The game's various customization options are easily one of the main draws to Champions Online. And the bar was set pretty high coming off of CoX. We knew it, Crypic knew it, and they delivered. While outstanding by the standards of most MMO's, anyone who had a taste of CoH's character creation system will be right at home the first time they fire up Champions. Which isn't to say that the game's character customization was just copy/pasted over from the previous game as a developmental shortcut, just that Cryptic took their winning formula from CoX and ran a little further with it. It's some of the newer customization features that are truly impressive, like the ability to change the hue of various powers to better fit your characters aesthetic aims. Each power also has a number of additional effects and bonuses that can be tacked on through training points, allowing a further layer of customization and further insuring that it's quite unlikely you'll ever run across two heroes who look and preform in exactly the same way.
- NPCs/Background – Here's another facet of Champions that shines through. The various characters and locations offered in the game thus far all capture the tongue in cheek comic atmosphere. True to the genre both heroes and super villains are larger than life in all their exaggerated and colorful flare. It's also good to see that the game doesn't take itself too seriously, and that even the starting areas offer a number of tongue-in-cheek references to it's own subject matter, as well as various other parodies from pop culture. As I said at the beginning of the post I don't want to give away any spoilers, but suffice to say a few of the early quests will deal with caricatures that will look all too familiar..
Game play
- Balance – I'd be a great big fibber if I said the game didn't need some balancing tweaks. Even the three different power sets I've experimented a bit with up to around level 15 have drawn my attention to some glaring issues. That said, I'm not terribly concerned yet. The developers have demonstrated a great willingness throughout the beta to listen to community feedback, offering many hotfixes and patches to address various bugs and balancing issues that the community brought to their attention. So long as this willingness continues after the game's public launch, I believe it's just a matter of time until the various character balancing issues get ironed out.
- PVE – So far so good. I've played through the common tutorial area a handful of times, as well as the two available starting areas available to you afterwards. I've been pleased to see that the game has developed a certain cinematic aspect that has started to show up in more recent MMOs. Which is to say that for the most part you actually feel like your contributing to something through the quests and story arcs. It was expected that a certain amount of sensationalism and special attention would be taken with the starting zones in order to draw the players in and make a first strong impression. But while many MMOs will wander off after that point of grabbing your attention and default back to the tried and true grind fest, Champions does seem to make a bit of extra effort to keep that momentum going past the first zone or two. Which isn't to say that there isn't a certain grinding feel to it, or that there are no 'Kill X number of Y' quests stuffed in. These things are there. But really...every MMO from not until the dawn of time is going to have some grind aspects to it. It's just the nature of the beast. What's important is that the quests are delivered in such a way that it doesn't feel like so obvious a grind. And thus far Champions leveling areas have continued to keep my interest. Another thing I was very happy to see included in the game is it's Open Quests. I know that Cryptic didn't pioneer the idea by any means, but I find it an innovation that should be used more liberally throughout MMOs in general. For those readers not familiar with Pqs from WAR or the spattering of similar encounters more recently added (with somewhat less success I'd say) to WoW.
- PVP – Player Vs Player game play is the area I'd say the need for balancing tweaks among the powers are most evident. Granted I've only participated in the first available scenario around level 10, a team oriented deathmatch set in a cage match styled arena. Still, I've hit the arena with three different characters at the same level bracket in order to make some observations on balance issues. And it's true that with one class I had a very easy time at things while another afforded me a giant headache as I tried to keep up. While more powerset-specific observations will be made in a subsequent post, suffice to say the balance issues are there and I can see how they might cause some players some definite grief when entering the PVP instances. Still there's nothing that I don't think can be ironed out by the developers as they go along tweaking the balance, which they're already working on.
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