blog
- E3 08: Eyes-On Champions Online
- Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago by Coop
While walking around Take-Two’s room at the Electronics Entertainment Expo I noticed a lot of people wearing Champions Online shirts, and eventually I asked if I could get a sneak peak. I was ushered into a room with a few other members of the press where two Xbox 360’s were playing the game, live in the room. It wasn’t a demo, or a video, it was the full game, and they were connected to the Champions Online servers.
The graphics were made to suit a superhero game well, and are stylized to appear as comic-like and cartooney as possible. Hitting enemies even displayed the occasional “BAM” or “SMASH,” further immersing me into the game. Gameplay looked like a typical MMO in terms of combat, but has more action elements than traditional MMORPGs. Giving players the ability to block, grab, and complete other actions should set the game apart from the typical RPG experience. The developers at Cryptic, who were demoing the game, promised us that there would be an unprecedented amount of customization, in both the looks and abilities of the heroes. From our limited look it did appear that there were many different ways to build characters, and I hope that they are successful in living up to this promise.
The section we saw was small, and featured the two heroes hunting down ASCII Oakley, the leader of a group of robotic cowboys that had malfunctioned and were attacking innocent civilians. After killing enough robots, ASCII Oakly spawned, which was directly related to how well the players fought the minions.
After the session I asked the guys at Cryptic about Champion’s nemesis system. They confirmed that sometime during the early stages of your character you will create your villain, who will be a nuisance throughout the game in ways that the developers couldn’t say. What they DID say is that you will be able to play as your nemesis during the game, but couldn’t elaborate. That’s right, you will be able to play as your own villain. My imagination has gone wild with ideas as to how this can be implemented, but none of them make much sense.
My time with Champions was short and I didn’t get to actually play it, but Cryptic said that they will be in contact with Gamervision in the near future so we can bring you more information on their extremely exciting MMORPG. Right now it's dated as Spring 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PC, so stay tuned.
Related Articles:
E3 08: Microsoft's New Fallout 3 Trailer
E3 08: Microsoft's Press Conference
| Share this article: |
|
Comments
Oh, and the death penalty was a pain. Having to earn less experience after death is not fun. I guess it was used to encourage better tactics and being more careful (lol), but all it did was discourage me to stop playing. It's a good thing they're doing something different for Champions Online. It'll be the same as WoW where you lose durability on equipment.
I thought CoH was a lot of fun as well, but I was an early adopter. It was great for a while, but the missions started feeling repetitive. WoW was soon released right after and my friends and I jumped ship. I'm sure it's a different game now with most of the problems fixed.
City of Heroes was a lot of fun, and since they are building on that success...I can't imagine this will take a step backward.
This is the MMO I'm waiting for. The fantasy genre is getting a little stale to me. Hopefully, they learn from their mistakes with CoH/CoV and apply it here. If not, I'll either pick up WotLK or WAR like everyone else. Please be good!
You guys made fun of the name in the podcast, but I think ASCII Oakley is GD awesome.
360 MMO? I'm intrigued.