by Chris Buffa on Friday, August 29, 2008
World of Warcraft is great, but we need a different massively-multiplayer online game, one that introduces new features and plunges us into a world not populated by dwarves and elves. But wait, what's that on the horizon? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online, a multiplatform MMO available next year for both the PC and PlayStation 3. Instead of plundering a fantasy world beating up dragons, you'll team up with Batman, Superman and numerous other heroes to battle the Joker, Brainiac and all sorts of dastardly villains. There's flying, destructible environments and plenty of mayhem. Finally, fresh air for a stale genre.
At a recent SOE event, the company handed us a PS3 controller (the game ran on PC hardware) to get a feel for DC Universe and beat up some evildoers. Even at this early stage, the game plays great, as we maneuvered our created hero using the left analog stick and attacked enemies by pressing and holding R2 and then selecting one of four attacks mapped to the DualShock 3's face buttons. We pounded bad guys, encased them in blocks of ice and then sent that block hundreds of feet into the air. In addition, we grabbed pick-up trucks and took off, flying high above our adversaries and then dropping the vehicle onto their heads. It was sweet.
In this particular scenario, Metropolis was under attack by Brainiac, who transformed good-natured civilians into mindless zombies. It was our job to beat some sense into them and in the process return them to normal. This wasn't easy, however, since there were tons of them littering the streets and they enjoyed punching our character in the face. Lex Luthor's interference didn't help, and we had to step away from the mission to deal with him.
Before getting into that, we wondered if we could play as Batman, a question SOE quickly answered. Since numerous players will probably choose the same superheroes, it would be unrealistic to have hundreds of Caped Crusaders running around. To solve this issue, the company created the 150 plus superheroes non-player characters you fight alongside or against. All you have to do is create your own hero or villain from the ground up by picking his or her costume and various powers. Each character has a Power Type (ice, earth, fire, light, electricity and more) and then you get to decide their Power Source (a ring, bow, axe, sword or pistol, among others). You can also decide how they move, such as having super speed or flying.
Thanks to a collaboration with DC Comics and illustrator Jim Lee, SOE has done a great job bringing this persistent world to life. All of the heroes and villains resemble their comic book counterparts, and Metropolis has plenty of areas to explore, buildings to scale and stuff to break. However, you'll visit other places. The developers are busy recreating Gotham City, the Bat Cave, the Temple of Isis, Arkham Asylum and many more locales.
DC Universe Online should be a hit once it debuts sometime next year. The fact that SOE plans to release it on the PS3 means it'll attract a lot more gamers, though whether they'll be able to play with PC users remains to be seen. For now, this ambitious MMO shows a lot of promise, and we can't wait to don our capes and save mankind.
Previous Page
Next Page