Product Reviews

If you long to slip on a pair of tights and cruise the city streets looking for action, City of Heroes will be right up your alley. It's not a street-crawling simulator, but a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the world of costumed superheroes.

Like all MMORPGs, City of Heroes (CoH) kicks off with character generation. There are five basic hero archetypes, including hand-to-hand Scrappers, long-distance damage-dealing Blasters and environment-manipulating Controllers. Each archetype has a unique set of powers to choose from and more become available later in the game. Just about every superhero power is covered, apart from wall crawling and web shooting.

No superhero is complete without a costume. In CoH, costume design is a game in itself. A hero's appearance can be heavily customised.

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Wings are noticeably absent, however, though they may appear in a future update.

Heroes start off in one of two small cities, complete with pedestrians and street traffic. Crime lurks around every corner and you'll soon stumble across a mugging. Fighting street punks is fun for a while, but you'll soon seek the thrill of a proper mission. Missions start off easy, but soon turn into challenging adventures that take hours to complete.

Success in CoH means being successful in combat. The combat system is well implemented and hugely satisfying. The sound and graphics that accompany the various super-powered attacks are spectacular. The enemy AI allows for surprisingly strategic encounters. And the option to form a team with up to seven other players adds another dimension to the game.

CoH isn't complicated; there are no secret identities to worry about, heroes don't need to eat or sleep, and there are no weapons or treasure to find. Defeated villains may drop enhancements that can assist you, but otherwise you just have to earn experience points to develop your hero.

Whether this approach can sustain months of play is questionable, though NC Soft does add new features regularly. New epic archetypes were introduced recently, and the next update will add a player v player arena. A City of Villains expansion pack is also in the pipeline, allowing players to destroy the world rather than save it.