Champions Online... where to begin with this one? Probably with a bit of history, for your personal culture. On the 28th September 2006, Microsoft Game Studios and Cryptic Studios announced a brand new multiplayer game for the Xbox 360 known as Marvel Universe Online. The only thing we can all Google about this project is a short teaser with an epic music that shows actually nothing revelant about the game itself but it was here... until the 11th February 2008 when Marvel decided to cancel everything without explaination.

Ending with an almost completed game in their hands, Cryptic Studios didn't really want to lose this investment although they lost the Marvel licence for publication. So they played it smart : just looking for another super-heroic universe, they found a table-top roleplaying game called Champions created by George MacDonald, Steve Peterson, Bruce Harlick and Ray Greer in 1981. It was more or less the same thing as Marvel and DC so they exploited this newly acquired licence to quickly rebuild their game, renaming it Champions Online at the same time.

Fact is, when you look at Champions' lore it seems quite dark, mature like DC because when we think Marvel many people instantly remember Spider Man, Deadpool and other cheerful characters. The best example for this argument could be the fact that one vigilante from Champions (named Nighthawk) looks shockingly like Batman from DC, and we can even find some kind of Joker in characters like Black Harlequin or Jack Fool... but that's probably me being nitpicky over the cell-shading technology employed in this game, while the feeling of the characters and places seem darker than that?

Anyway, back to the game itself! I would recommand Champions Online for one thing mainly : near limitless character creation and customisation. If you've played City of Heroes before, you see what I mean instantly, it should be the spark that will ignite your wild imagination. For the new players who never got the chance to play this game (now lost because NCSoft have decided to shut it down, mostly to capitalise on the Guild Wars franchise) just give it a try, considering that it's free to play and nothing there will force you to open your wallet just to enjoy the game entirely... unlike what Electronic Arts have done with the "free" to play model of Star Wars The Old Republic.

Indeed, the gameplay is repetitive, even tedious sometimes considering that all you'll do is punching or shooting bad guys over and over again, just to level up, complete a mission, get a rare loot, gain Questionite or obtain the Mods you're looking for. But then we could argue over the fact that it's "essential" to any massively multiplayer online roleplaying game : Everquest, Ultima Online, Lineage, Dark Age of Camelot, Perfect World International, World of Warcraft, Allods Online, Aion, Tera... none of them has avoided that part. Even Firefall (quite an interesting MMO third-person shooter) couldn't dodge the bullet, but the game is still fun nonetheless.

One thing I personally appreciate nowadays with Champions Online is that you can get everything for free. Really, no trap there but you'll need to invest a bit of yourself and your free time into it if you want to gain something. Remember this Questionite I mentioned quickly earlier? If you get enough of it, you can trade it on the in-game Market for Zen points, and said currency can be used to purchase things in the Zen Store such as costume packs, travel powers, new Archetypes to play with and (for the absolute zealot or masochist) even the mighty Freeform Slot.

But what is a Freeform you may ask? Simple : it's a character who has access to all the powers available to players in the game, and can combine them as they see fit. Of course, many veterans will claim that "Freeform > Archetypes" but believe me when I claim that I've seen some horribly designed Freeform characters and even made my own mistakes when I first tried. A Freeform character is only extremely powerful if you intent to design it this way, and some Archetypes can still beat you if the player knows what he / she's doing. You could try for example to challenge Fleur@Augusti to a duel : this guy plays a Blade Archetype, and has probably taken down more Freeform in a month than myself in a year.

To conclude : this game has potential, and it's absolutely free as long as you want it to be. You can spend your money if you want to reward Cryptic Studios (and the newly created Cryptic North) for the few improvements they brought to the game, or you can start farming the Questionite if you happen to be some kind of grumpy Uncle Scrooge because one single Zen point is worth 225 to 250 Refined Questionite Ores on the Market. It's definitely not a ground-breaking game that will strike your mind as astonishingly beautiful, original or even just flawless... but some people may see there an Eldorado where the player can become King if they find the energy to climb their way to the top, while some artists would find a tool to unleash their creativity and try out their ideas.

I'm fairly sure that over 50% of my played gametime is spend in character creation, worth it.

Champions Online was one of my favorite MMOs, period. I spent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game, mostly playing with other players like one should in an mmo. I don't actually play there anymore, but felt the game deserved at least an honest review from someone who spent and enjoyed so much time in it. Keep in mind my opinion may be a bit bias because of this, but know I'll be trying to be as fair as possible as a reviewer.

The game has a MASSIVE focus on character customization that puts others in its genre to shame (and I've played plenty of them, trust me). You will spend a good half hour or more messing around with the look of your first character before you actually get into the game. And the best part is you can change it at any time. The appearance of your character is completely cosmetic and unrelated to your character's actual equipment, so you don't have to spend hours and hours and hours trying to find gear that you like the look of. It's already there for you at any time. There are so many options revolving around the appearance of your character and whatever they're wearing, that it's worth trying out alone just to see and believe. The game oozes content, has fun and engaging pvp, cool superpowers, and a lot of lore to help get you immersed in the universe. Combat in general feels like it has impact or effect. The world is very detailed and varied with multiple, large areas (such as the city, the canadian wilderness, undersea, etc.) with plentiful dungeons, bosses, and monster variation to boot. My favorite battles were the ones with epic bosses (yes, the game has those) that didn't require a 30-man group to slay so much as a competent, small party. And I know some people may not understand where I'm coming from, but I'm not a fan of games that force you to grind to level 80-100 to get the end-game. The level cap on this game is (last time I checked) level 40, which is fairly easy to get to within a reasonable amount of time when compared to other mmos. So if you're worried about this being a grindy game, don't worry, the trip is shorter than others.

The game did have problems though. For one thing, the quests are fairly generic. Which is forgiveable, given the date this game was released, but it's not going to astound you with its structure. Pretty standard stuff; kill ten of these guys or go get three of these items, etc. This made the pve element of the game fairly boring unfortunately. The A.I in the game occassionally had something new to throw, but again, do not expect mind-blowing A.I to regroup or use successive abilities in perfect synchronization on you or anything like that (boss fights vary). There's also a -really- painful lack of character development for your hero. It's not like Star Wars the Old Republic where you're making decisions that have an impact on your alignment or anything; everything is set in stone. You can not play a villain, only a hero, which may dissapoint or even turn away some fans of hero mmos. I completely understand as I often wish there was a villain faction to fight the hero faction in the open world. You do get a nemesis at some point, which is essentially an npc villain you make, but that's about it. I personally found it a dissapointing feature, as you're only ever going to see that npc when you get randomly attacked by minions of it and get a quest-item drop to go into a dungeon or see your nemesis during alerts (which are essentially quick-action dungeons or game modes with random party members). The music was great sometimes, but unfortunately had a looping issue which made the game very quiet. The fighting animations, while cool to look at when executed properly, did seem unpolished at times (if you ever played Warhammer Online, you'll have a general idea of what I'm talking about). The voice acting is also inconsistent and either hit or miss.

Finally, the free-to-play model that I have mixed feelings about. After I went gold, I simply couldn't go back to silver out of my need for freeform building (which essentially allows you to structure your abilities as well as color them however you like), and need for more customization options, which does come with it. When it came to pvp, subscribers dominated as freeform allows for some insanely powerful builds that just aren't available to free players. Even though there's a que for pvp for non-freeforms, it still cuts off free players from a massive portion of the community and makes que times much longer. There were times when the free-to-play model worked though. You could buy exclusive outfits, consumeables, travel powers (yes, there's more than just flying and running), hideouts, boosts, and more in the cash shop. None of these were required to really succede at the game, but instead offered either conveinance or added to it. There was some really cool cosmetic stuff in it that was reasonably priced (most of it anyway), and felt like a good exchange to keep the game going.

If I had any suggestions to improve the game in its current state, the main one would be to stop dividing the player population between subscribers and non-subscribers by removing the gold status requirement for freeform (can still keep some power types locked off for non-subscribers). It makes the game feel pay-to-win and just made me irritated getting locked off from my freeform character until I dished out another monthly payment. Also implement a supergroup v.s supergroup (guilds) element so that players can battle it out in the streets whenever their supergroups desire.

I know I complained a lot in this little review, but trust me when I say the game is worth taking a look at. It's far from perfect, but has solid combat, plenty of content, MASSIVE customization, and a pretty decent community (from my experience at least). Game gets a 7/10 from me, despite the fact it may be a bit out of date. Go ahead and try this game out if you're even remotely interested in playing a superhero mmo that actually makes you FEEL super. You got nothing to lose.

Currently, the only thing even remotely like the now defunct City of Heroes and City of Villains (aka CoX).

It hurts my head.