In this era of a hundred comic book movies a year plus spin-off shows, it’s getting harder and harder to remember that not so long ago trying to take a superhero off the printed page and onto some kind of screen was basically a recipe for failure, mockery, and a way of flying a promising creative career into a great big rock. Hell, even now most superheroes without the word ‘Bat’ in their name are still waiting for someone to even attempt a game, never mind make a good one. For every Batman on NES or Arkham Asylum, there’s an Aquaman or Superman on Nintendo 64.

On PC, it’s always been particularly weird. Especially when you look at which companies have tried and failed over the years to bring us the ultimate superhero RPG. Is there anything out there that comes close? Ignoring Freedom Force, since that’s not an RPG? Well, some! Enough not to have to hold out for a hero, at least.

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It looks like Atari, recently the focus of negative attention after Test Drive Unlimited developer Eden Games went on strike due to their treatment, are looking to gather some more cash. Via PCG we see Gamespot spotted the news that the publisher is selling Cryptic, the studio behind Star Trek: Online and Champions: Online.

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It was announced back in 2010 that Champions Online would be moving to a free-to-play model, but that has now been dated: JANUARY 25TH IS THE DATE. Needless to say, you can keep subscribing to unlock loads of the content that will now be available via the “C-Store”, or you can play for free and buy various content packs with micro-cash. Here’s an FAQ that may answer and questions you might have. I link to that because can’t answer them, not accurately anyway, but if you do> want to ask questions in the comments below I’ll have a wild stab at answering them when I wake up in the morning. Or I might just forget, or idly blog links to Minecraft texture packs instead. Anyway, you can already> play some of Champions for free, because there is a trial mode thing, or “demo”. Hooray!

You will remember, of course, that Champions Online wasn’t as much fun as City Of Heroes, which was a shame, but that’s life, eh?

Champions: Online, the spiritual successor to City Of Heroes, has announced that it will move to a free-to-play model from the first quarter of 2011. This also involves a new closed beta test that starts on the 9th November, mostly aimed at current players, with a possibility of outsiders being let in too. There’s more super-details underneath the sentence I’m super-typing right super-now.

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