DC Universe Online

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IGN: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/907/907161p1.html

 

Server Status: DC Universe Online Hands-on

Do you want to be like Batman?

by Carolyn Koh

 

September 2, 2008 - Imagine being able to play a superhero character of your own making and assist Batman in a mission to protect Gotham City. Or maybe you would prefer to concoct a scheme with the Joker or the Penguin? Or you could oppose or support Brainiac's robot army. This will be your choice when Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online launches.

 

DC Universe Online is an epic hero's journey, based on the various storylines of the series of comic books; the hero always returns "home" to Gotham and Metropolis after each adventure. As the hero, you will travel through various quests (missions) to meet, interact, assist and perhaps defeat different characters in the DC universe.

 

Character customization is mostly in the visual setup, the silhouette and costume. When building a character, players will build four stats: power, power source, movement mode and origin. Power will include ice, fire, electricity, atomic (radiation), and martial arts to name a few. Power source is how you want this power to manifest; it could be in the form of thrown weapons, dual pistols, your bare fists, a single mace, etc. Movement mode includes flight, speed, and acrobatics. Origin is the basis of your power, which could be magic, like Shazam; meta (human), like Superman; or tech (technical), which means that your power is from gadgets, like Lex Luthor. As creative director Jens Andersen notes, "You could build a Batman-like character and choose Martial Arts, Thrown Weapons, Acrobatics and Tech."

 

As this is an action MMOG, every action and reaction will have a cool down period, but players will not be sitting around waiting for bars to refill. Players will have health and power bars to keep an eye on, but these regenerate very quickly, and powers/abilities are available that can assist in keeping a player's health and power bar up. Players do not gain experience points (XP) by destroying or neutralizing enemies, they gain XP when they complete an objective. Each encounter may have one or more objectives, and as the XP bar fills up, players gain points to spend in their abilities. I swear that the "ding" when the XP bar fills is the same chime in EverQuest, maybe modified a little, but it really strikes a chord in my EQ geek heart.

 

Designed concurrently on the PS3 and PC platforms, console and PC gamers will interact in the same world. Indeed, the demo was shown on a PC with both a PS3 controller and a keyboard and mouse. Jens was pleased to show me how the controls and game interface switched as each input device was handled. As the controls were handed over to me, I reminded myself that this was a pre-alpha slice of the game and I was off. The left toggle moves the character, the right toggle moves the camera--which was also how you aim. The face buttons control each of four skills/abilities that you chose to bring into this scenario, and combinations of the triggers do different things. For example, target lock on with the left top trigger. When I got my character close enough to an object that could be interacted with, like a car or a parking meter, the object changed color and the outline flashed. I could then pick it up and throw it. Yes, it's fun to pick up a car and throw it, and fun to freeze an enemy into a block of ice (basically a stun) and blast him.

 

Jens suggested a possible group scenario: "Someone freezes the bad guy into a block of ice, another guy with electricity charges it. You've got the weaponization (strength in other MMORPGs) skill to pick him up and throw him. You've effectively not only neutralized an enemy, you've turned around and used him to your advantage."

 

Tool tips constantly flashed on the screen; the circle button to interact with an object, the triangle button to throw it, etc. The same was repeated for the keyboard; with Jens advising me, it was not difficult to play. Always being the jumping fool, I tended to jump right into the middle of a group to unleash my area-of-effect power. I am happy to report here that the console controls are not that difficult to use for a non-console player. The most combinations required were perhaps the press of a trigger button to access different targeting or movement options with none of the "press these combinations of buttons" to access special attacks that always left me feeling like I had the dexterity of a "camel in mittens," to quote a friend.

 

Players have four active and four reactive skills that they select to take into an encounter. The four active skills are accessed through the face buttons, and the four reactive will automatically fire and range from block to evade to buffs. As mentioned earlier, the GUI changes depending on the input devices. When using the PS3 controller, the four skill icons are shown in a circle on the bottom right of the screen, corresponding with the four face buttons. When using the mouse and keyboard, the four skill icons are shown in a line on the bottom left of the screen, corresponding with the 1 to 4 number keys. The reactive skills will also have a cool down period and both are represented much like the face of a clock with a second hand sweeping around it before it brightens up and the skill is usable again. So you just might want to pause a second until your evade and block skills come back up again before you engage Bizarro, for example.

 

The camera does not follow "over the shoulder" as it is part of the aiming mechanic. Your character aims the way he faces. Therefore, you have to control both sticks; movement and camera at the same time. With where the camera control is, I bumped into the analog stick while accessing the four face buttons a couple of times. Perhaps it is a matter of my unfamiliarity with the PS3 controller. I'm not a console player, after all, but Jens agreed that the issue has been brought up, and that also reminded me that this game is in a pre-alpha state of development. Looks great, plays well in this playable slice, but still in pre-alpha. Controls and player interface will be improved upon.

 

With the keyboard and mouse combo, movement is controlled by the keyboard and the camera by the mouse. I suggested the currently favored movement and camera control scheme that's in many games -- press both mouse buttons and move the mouse to control movement and camera at the same time. I can only hope.

 

I tried out two different movement modes -- flight and speed. I toggled into the mode and couldn't get over the low wall. "Look up," Jens laughed. Ahh... so look in the direction you want to move. That made perfect sense. Thank goodness you don't bob up and down when you are stationary; you just hang in the air. This wasn't levitating, this was flight. The speed mode was also interesting. As flight gave you a speed boost and allowed you to fly up a building, speed allows you to run up the side of a building, with accompanying graphical effects like The Flash.

 

As a combination of third-person action shooter plus MMORPG, this game really looks exciting. With Jim Lee's creative energy and direction behind the art, and a talented team consisting of action adventure designers and MMO designers, SOE may have found the right balance to take this game forward to not just a DC Fanboi paradise, but a superhero game that would draw both the action RPG and MMORPG aficionados.

 

Sounds freaking awesome. I'm psyched that PS3 & PC players can interact.. that bodes well for me being able to play with a few friends who were really interested in this but have no PS3..

[Dr. Zoidberg 0]

So it WON'T be available for Mac?

 

Fucking Mac.

 

On that note, It looks absolutely awesome. Teaming up with The Joker? Assisting Batman? My childhood dreams will come true.

 

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You can probably emulate it on the newer Macs.. probably. I've heard of people doing that with other games and having success.

[WukenBloodstar 0]

If they let you join one of the Corps (Green Lantern or Sinestro) I'm fucking buying this game.