Champions Online [PC]

Champions Online, Cryptic Studios' first massively multiplayer roleplaying game, was officially released this week but, as part of the early start program, we've been playing since last Friday. While it's hard to judge a game this large after only a week's time, we wanted to offer some of our initial impressions of the game for those of you who just can't wait until our full review posts later this month. Keep in mind that MMOs are constantly evolving and are designed to keep delivering new features and content over months and years. While some of our early opinions of the game are likely to stand, others are just as likely to change as we continue to explore.

First, Champions Online compares favorably to the other super hero MMO, NCsoft's City of Heroes on which many of the Champions team worked. In some ways the new game feels like a more refined version of City of Heroes; it has the same great four-color vibe and nearly limitless costume options, but it also offers up more varied locations, a better visual style and a few of the more recent MMO trends like public quests. It's also had a very smooth launch overall, today's launcher problems aside.

The range of powers and appearances is vast, so you'll be able to make just about any character you've got in mind. We say "just about" because all the archetypes and powers are obviously very combat focused and don't allow for any morphing of a character's shape. Also, there are no fat characters, so fans of Bouncing Boy or, dare we say, Herbie Popnecker, will have to wait for the Fat Guys expansion. But outside of those restrictions, the character creation tools are remarkably flexible, allowing us to make everything from a sword-fighting cat to a snowman to our current character of choice, Supermanatee.

The game offers a brief but exciting tutorial that outlines most of the core game features and introduces players to the Champions themselves. It's a nice way to ease players into the experience and it's not long enough that it'll feel like a chore when you have to run through it all again with your other characters. From here players actually get out of the city and can start the rest of their adventures amid the supernatural horrors of the Canadian Wilderness or the irradiated deserts of the American southwest.

But of course, there's more going on than just this initial setup. Quite early in the game, players in the Canadian Wilderness will also find themselves dealing with the survivors of a recent plane crash, not-so-secret installations for a group bent on world domination and, for some reason, a giant floating brain. Out in the desert, things are just as bizarre with Old West-style ghost towns complete with real ghosts, discarded nuclear warheads and a host of other surprises.

If you're looking for Champions Online to differentiate itself on the strength of its quests, don't bother, at least as far as the game's early content goes. Though the text itself is mildly entertaining, there's very little story told within the course of the missions themselves. This is particularly disappointing because the big missions that sort of end the newbie experience and transition to the next level of the game are very well done with lots of interactive elements and NPCs. The difference here is that the context for the mission is being presented within the encounters and not simply pasted into a quest description.

The rest of the missions are the regular MMO mad lib style: "We need you to [VERB] [NUMBER] [NOUN]." Sure, it's plenty heroic to rescue mountain climbers from zombies or beat up enemy soldiers to learn about their secret plans, but the whole context for those adventures is definitely lacking so far. We're not expecting The Old Republic style story telling, but we also don't feel that we should have to read each and every quest description to get a sense of what's going on around us.

The good news is that the missions are genuinely fun. You'll frequently be taking on multiple enemies -- freezing them in ice, blasting them with rockets or throwing forklifts at them. The range of powers allows for a wide variety of tactics, particularly once your opponents start using them against you. The first time a villain knocks you into a group of nearby henchmen, you'll really start to appreciate how lively and dynamic the battles can be. Of course, there are still some rather predictable conventions here, but the variation of ranged and close attacks and the different travel powers has kept things fresh so far. Like City of Heroes before it, Champions Online manages to balance the game so that your starting characters already feel powerful but still have room to grow.