Champions Online is a MMO in a similar vein to the City of ... games, set in and around the troubled metropolis of Millennium City, home to alien invasions and super villain crime waves. We went along to Atari’s Hammersmith HQ to check out the game, which is due to launch July 14th for the PC with an Xbox 360 version following in September. Creating our own superhero from scratch, we were given a glimpse of the different job roles for each character, as well as the sets of powers and abilities you can assign. The sheer wealth of customisation options on offer is truly staggering, offering everything from capes and cowls to horns and wings; the only limit is your imagination. We set to work on making our own superhero using the mysticism job set, and with an origin story in mind for our character; his look and style easily fell into place. Resplendent in giant dragonfly wings, steel body armour and wrist mounted cannons, our hero evolved into a huge canary yellow lycra-clad nightmare. There are loads of different origins and job roles to choose from as a starting point towards building your own crusader, ranging from mutant to mystical and everything in between. The hundreds of costume pieces mean that there are literally millions of different combinations to ensure that no two heroes are the same and that anything you can imagine is easily achievable.
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| Dr. Destroyer is Champions’ big bad guy and the ultimate evil in Millennium City. | Our weird creation stands around waiting for some action. His name is too crap to mention here. |
After putting the finishing touches to our interplanetary, horned space demon, we swoop into the streets of Millennium City, which is currently gripped by an extraterrestrial invasion in full swing. Plagued by pulsating alien eggs and marauding insectoid creatures we immediately get stuck in, kicking seven shades out of anything that doesn’t look human. Amid all the turmoil, specific missions can be accessed via a computer terminal at the beginning of the level or through talking to various NPCs on the streets such as the mayor or chief of police. The few objectives we encountered included rescuing vulnerable citizens or obtaining an important item from the enemy’s clutches and there are obviously a whole range of varied tasks to complete in the full game. Fighting through the alien hordes is great fun though, if a tad awkward using the keys and mouse. Champions Online seems as though it will be a far better fit for a controller, with combos mapped to the face buttons.
Enemies level up alongside your own character, so things remain suitably challenging at all times, giving you the perfect reason to upgrade your burgeoning abilities. There are 900 missions in total, spread across five distinct regions meaning that there’s plenty to do and huge potential to earn experience to level up your hero. Your powers must be gradually earned as you progress and level up through the course of the game, so you won’t necessarily be able to take to the skies instantly even if you assign flight powers to your crime fighting machine. Still, our guy kicks ass like a pro, leaping about like an agile martial artist, and as punches register with comic book style thwacks and pows, the action looks bold, dynamic and exciting. Visually, Champions Online is as close as it’s possible to get to the four-colour comic books the game so faithfully references, adopting a cel-shaded art style that utilises bump mapping, various lighting techniques and more, to give the graphics a far greater depth and solidity.
Taken through several striking locations by ex-Flagship alumnus and Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo man Bill Roper, we’re shown the diversity of the various regions. Lumeria, an underwater civilisation filled with ancient temple ruins and Monster Island, a vast uncharted jungle are the two areas Roper shows us, but the game’s other regions include Snake Gulch, a deserted theme park overrun with cowboy cyborgs and an underground super villain prison stronghold beneath an arid Canadian desert. Each region is completely unique, holding a whole host of tasks to complete and crises to overcome ensuring that there’s always plenty for you to do in Champions’ colourful comic book world. Beyond the hundreds of story-driven missions, there are three styles of PvP and PvE modes with ranked five-on-five battle arenas to participate in. Forming guilds is also possible with proper guild headquarters promised as DLC shortly after the game ships.
Cryptic may have lost the Marvel licence, but they’ve gained something far more exciting in Champions Online. During our hands-on we found the game to be effortlessly entertaining, immersive and incredibly compulsive, making this one to watch for PC and 360 gamers later in the year. We’re already donning our crotch hugging spandex hotpants in anticipation.
Check out our interview with executive producer Bill Roper for more on Champions Online.
