Let me say right now that this is DEFINITELY a preview based on the Beta; Not on final code. I will say however, that I spent approximately 12-15 hours playing. Which I know, is a VERY SMALL amount of time in terms of someone's experience with an MMORPG but that's why its a preview.
Champions Online is a super hero based video game for the PC. The player creates a unique character built using VERY detailed tools. This design is not permanent but the player will have to pay in game money to change the design once it's been created initially. This is the first MMORPG with the exception of City of Heroes(another Cryptic Studios game) that has you creating a semi-permanent design that doesn't change with gear. This seems like a nice fit in general, considering how often does Superman change his costume, not often; if ever! But it does change the player's concept of progression.
The character creator DOES allow you to create VIRTUALLY ANY kind of hero. But everything is buried. If you are feeling even in the least bit lazy about your character design initially you might want to wait. Because the majority of the character design attributes are vast but you have to look for them. In most cases they are tabbed off the main one or perhaps in a different drop down menu that is not the default tab.
I would say the average time it takes to make a descent hero, is around 10 minutes but certainly changing things and trying things out could run into a MUCH LONGER time. The options are certainly more comparable to City of Heroes than World of Warcraft. But they are more diverse and varied than even City of Heroes if you actually take the time to use the options. Every time you create a hero you get a comic image, issue #1:
Dark Storm(pictured above) was my VERY FIRST character. He was a REAL work in progress. What I did do with both my of characters is that I chose custom choices for EVERYTHING; from powers to body type. My character started out being a mix of electrical powers and Darkness powers. Both of which are incredibly powerful if you up their ranks. This character was a more caster type focused hero and seemed to work pretty well as a lot of the gear had intelligence and constitution on it. I certainly couldn't tank for a group or anything but I wasn't a glass cannon either.
My second hero(pictured above) was a more tanking type character. He had a long range attack that was all right but no REAL area of effect attacks. He had a wonderful push back attack as well as a great crowd control that ACTUALLY killed a lot of enemies once it was upgraded once. He only died a couple times while fighting a boss character and if I didn't do anything silly, he was all most impossible for most similar level enemies to kill. There is a kind of a strange point around level 10 where you really have to make the right decisions to make your character more powerful. I would suggest ranking up existing powers rather than trying to get new rank 1 powers. It just isn't worth the newness to have more powers but all powers at a lower strength.
The gear that drops off monsters, bosses, and what you get from quests are random and usually odd looking little thumbnail pictures that you drop into whatever slot it highlights. The gear such as it is can also be crafted. Which in some cases can be REALLY amazing. But at low levels it's all most not worth the trouble considering how often your gear is changing. There is no gathering profession per se. And you can only have one crafting profession and one specialization in that profession. The gear certainly is categorized from different areas like science, arms, or mysticism. Which is fine, except that it really makes no difference to anything and the fact that they feel that making them seem different to go along with the theme of your character seems a little unnecessary.
During the time that I played there were certainly bugged quests and even a crash here and there but this was the beta and this was to be expected even by the time of an open beta. After all, Age of Conan still had a couple of bugged quests a year after launch. But in general everything worked pretty well, and seemed pretty much done.
I was impressed that even during the beta the game allowed for XBOX 360 controller compatibility. Which in most cased was really a pleasure. You still need to use the keyboard to talk to people. But all the combat and movement could be controlled using the controller. It also made the game more action feeling, which is great in any combat centered game.
I did play through a difficult instance style situation with my first character. It was a lot of fun playing with a full group of 5 people all totally decimating the monsters and villains. The instanced nature of every part of the game at first made me feel a little skeptical about rolling with a group but it seemed to work out well. It is hard for me to understand how hooking up with the same people multiple times but not being part of a permanent group seems like it would be a challenge considering every time you leave one server and enter another you could be doing so with TOTALLY different people and this happens quite often within the terms of normal gameplay. However, this might be fixable with a patch or even a mod.
The graphics in Champions Online running on a pretty beefy machine with everything turned on looks pretty good; certainly better than most MMORPGs out there right now. But certainly not even comparable to a game like Aion Online. But then that was probably obvious from the character models on the comic book covers. The game in some cases attempts to be very cartoony for the effect of you playing a comic book. Which is all right but stylistically they might have chosen better had they chosen differently.
The PVP(player versus player) in the game is more or less non-existent considering that you are all playing super heroes. But there is the arena in which you square off against people of a level in your range. Like if your level 15 you play with people who are level 11-20. This is normally a fine way of playing PVP. But with this game the difference between a 11 and a level 20 is SO GREAT that it really would take too many people ganging up on one high level to EVER bring them down. Hopefully this is either a balance issue that can be changed or something that is less extreme as you gain levels.
In the time I spent with Champions Online I truly enjoyed tinkering with my character and destroying everything in sight. It really makes you feel powerful and in general its a lot of fun. I would have liked to see a little more exciting cutscene when defeating a Super Villain but maybe that will come after launch. At this EARLY stage of the game; it seems to take just a little too long to get from level 1-20, which I wasn't able to do considering I wanted to try two different character types. My first character hit around level 12 and my second hit level 11. Considering the amount of time I spent with the game I probably could have leveled both to 20 if this was World of Warcraft instead of Champions Online. Perhaps the amount of XP given for quests needs to be increased. But this was only my experience.
There are certainly plenty of things to like about Champions Online and if you aren't all ready deeply invested in another MMORPG its probably worth a try. Hopefully they will have trial subscriptions as that is usually the only way people who aren't in the beta get to try MMORPGs out. However, as it stands right now(in the beta remember) the game doesn't seem to have the capacity for great longevity and considering there is really no particular REASON to collect one set of gear over another and considering getting new and different costume pieces involves unlocking them rather than getting them from quests the thrill may not be long lasting. But if you are looking for the NEXT best Super Hero MMORPG I would suggest checking this game out. Because your next chance won't be until some time next year with DC Universe Online; and while that game LOOKS awesome, you never really know.
Finally, Cryptic did announce that there would be an XBOX 360 version of the game coming out next year. But I would think the PC version will be the lead SKU, so if your computer can play the game with most of the features turned on, you may want to stick with that.
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