The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

The Steam Sale that Steam has been having over the holidays has been horrible. For people’s wallets. I was no different. One of the things I picked up, seeing as I had always meant to try it and it was only 10 bucks, was Champions Online. It was at a good price, and I continue to hope that, perhaps there will be some package deal with Star Trek Online so that when I play that with Spants, I can reactivate the subscription to this, just for fun. That might be wishful thinking.

How’s Champions? Well, let me tell you: it is an MMO.

I mean, I’m not completely knocking it for having that quality, because that is completely what it is. However, it’s not JUST an MMO. It is a complete recreation of City of Heroes. Like, totally. Only with a different backend and character building system. It’s honestly kind of amazing that Cryptic was okay making what seems like the exact same game.

Still, that means it brings over the really good qualities of City of Heroes, and that being the crazy character editor. You have so, so many options, and you can be incredibly creative. After some fiddling, I accidentally made my hero: Jackalope Girl. Just look at her. Isn’t she awesome? Here’s her amazing origin story.

Wandering outdoors during a horrible electrical hail storm, Jacqueline Lapin stumbled across a most disturbing and amazing sight: that of the mythical Jackalope mating ritual. The powerful killer rabbits were unable to let Jacqueline leave: No human was to see this awesome sight. However, they took pity on the poor girl, and made her one of them. Now imbued with the awesome power of Lepus Tempermentalus, Jacqueline has vowed to work to make the world safer for rabbit, antelope, and humankind.

Yeah, I’ve been having a lot of fun kind of creating her character. I’m picking skills that make sense for her too, instead of just whatever: She’s mostly just got kicks. Yep, she runs about and kicks people in the face. She also has Super Jump, of course. The customization is such that I can make her walk around on all fours, too, which is an awesome little touch.

Yeah, that kind of character creation was the very best part of City of Heroes, and it’s the best part of Champions.

Still, there are a few other things that are supposedly “different” from a normal MMO. The game is supposedly an “Action MMO,” but I don’t really see it. Sure, there is a block button, and some attacks you need to charge, but basically it just changes pressing one button and having it automatically fire to jamming constantly on one button instead. Not really a huge change. Maybe it makes a lot of difference in the late game? The one thing it does that I do appreciate is that it makes it pretty easy to escape combat. I can just jump away if I’m getting overwhelmed. That’s nice.
The one difference from other MMOs I’ve played that I do appreciate is that of many little instanced areas. I feel like it works really well. For example, you start in the main city of the game, Millennium City, but it’s under siege by aliens. This Alien Attack crisis is it’s own little instance: until you solve the crisis, you can’t go into the city proper, or do anything else. Similarly, I went to a place in the desert called Project Greenskin, which quickly fell under attack by mutants, who destroyed part of the facility and activated the emergency radiation quarantine barrier, and I needed to fix the problem before I could get outside it. I really like this. It adds a much stronger sense of story to the whole game, and it makes me, at least, feel more like a superhero: of course there are huge crises that demand my immediate attention! It makes it a lot cooler as a soloing experience.

The game is very soloable, too, which is nice. However, it probably is because you’re going to need to grind up many characters, due to the fact that it is very, very easy to completely ruin your character in character building, or so I hear, and that there is no complete respec. That’s kind of bullshit all around.

Still, I dunno, I’m enjoying my 10 dollar purchase. Will I subscribe to it on its own? Has it brought be back into the MMO fold? Nah. It’s a fine little distraction, though. I’ve no complaints. Though if you look at my Steam info to see how long I’ve played, know that Steam has messed up on the count! I haven’t really played that many hours. I’m not THAT crazy. Yet.