Post by Cybermortis on Jul 3, 2013 19:38:33 GMT
Released as a subscription based MMO two years ago, DC Universe online has since made the move to a hybrid free-to-play model. The game itself was released on the PC and PS3, and will be available for the PS4 later this year. This review is based on the PC version, which is free to download.
DCUO is an action based MMO with some light RPG thrown in. The game allows you to play as either a hero or villain, picking powers, fighting styles, movement type (flying, athletic or superspeed) and a 'mentor' (which denotes which missions you start with after the tutorial). The choices available are a mixture of 'big' and small. Several power sets and weapons are only available through some of the DLC, although this doesn't really affect gameplay since all the power sets seem balanced as they are.
Other areas of character creation are however very limited or just don;t exist - unlike many other MMO's there are no real options to change your appearance beyond your costume and skin.
Gameplay is similar to the Batman Arkham titles, meaning this is a third person beat them up rather than a 'click and watch your character attack' like World of Warcraft. You can pick special moves as you level up, the nature of which depends on what weapon set you are using. Powers require some careful thinking as you hit even fairly low levels, since the action bar (accessed by hitting a number key) only allows you to have six active powers in it at a time. This limitation seems to have been designed to make things more interesting as not all powers will be to be useful against all types of opponent or bosses.
The game world consists of the two major cities in the DC universe - Gotham and Metropolis - around which you can travel freely. Unlike, say, WoW it is perfectly possible to visit areas that contain mobs that will flatten you in one hit without automatically drawing their attention. There are also two bases, one for Heroes and one for Villains.
The gameplay is surprisingly good and fluid, even if PC players will notice that the game seems to have been designed initially for consoles, there are no real hassles in getting to grips with the controls. However like most MMO's that were originally released as retail games there are elements of the game that are not explained as you are playing such as the chat function. It appears that someone assumed players would be able to read the manual and still can.
The in game help is, well, not really any help at all in this regard as it just sends you to their website which tells you things you already figured out/were told and has this annoying habit of not telling you about the things you wanted to know. DCUO is not unique in having this problem, but it does grate a bit given how easy it is to pick the rest of the game up.
The visuals are impressive, which is not surprising given how young this game is, and the vocals...DCUO holds the record for the most number of actors providing voices in any game. And what actors they got - Batman is voiced by Kevin Conroy and the Joker by Mark Hamill - who have provided the voices for those characters in almost every animated version of them for over 20 years, including the Arkham series*. All of the other major NPC's are likewise voiced by actors who have voiced those characters at least once before, and even minor NPC's are voiced.
(*Note - Neither will be reprising their roles in the latest Arkham game)
This comes at a price though, namely size - the game is over 21 GB in size so it takes a long time to download - for me almost 18 hours. It also has a few technical annoyances, from insisting on checking all the files when you try to start the game through to it sending you to the DCUO home page every time you log out.
Server wise things seem stable, which is a statement that is tempting fate (or just the Joker). The game runs on four servers, two in the US and two in the EU split between a PvE and PvP server. You can get stuck in a queue when logging on during busy times, which is more likely to be a problem for free accounts.
The game has three types of account - Free, Premium and Legendary. Free is for those who haven't paid a penny, Premium for anyone who's spent more than £5 on the game* and Legendary is for subscribers. Some features are disabled for free accounts and limited for Premium users but fully available for Legendary accounts. Upgrading is probably well worth it if you get in to the game to any degree, since it not only allows you to have six rather than two characters. But Premium members are given priority over free accounts in queues - the difference is about 8 seconds versus two minutes or more at busy times.
(*In practice the smallest amount of the 'seven' money you can buy is worth £4.99. So you'd have to spend at least £7.99 to become a premium member. However this amount will allow you to get one of the DLC packs - which is probably what most people would be after anyway.)
Is this worth picking up? I'd say yes, if you can get past the long download time needed. It is VERY good fun and reeks of quality throughout.
DCUO is an action based MMO with some light RPG thrown in. The game allows you to play as either a hero or villain, picking powers, fighting styles, movement type (flying, athletic or superspeed) and a 'mentor' (which denotes which missions you start with after the tutorial). The choices available are a mixture of 'big' and small. Several power sets and weapons are only available through some of the DLC, although this doesn't really affect gameplay since all the power sets seem balanced as they are.
Other areas of character creation are however very limited or just don;t exist - unlike many other MMO's there are no real options to change your appearance beyond your costume and skin.
Gameplay is similar to the Batman Arkham titles, meaning this is a third person beat them up rather than a 'click and watch your character attack' like World of Warcraft. You can pick special moves as you level up, the nature of which depends on what weapon set you are using. Powers require some careful thinking as you hit even fairly low levels, since the action bar (accessed by hitting a number key) only allows you to have six active powers in it at a time. This limitation seems to have been designed to make things more interesting as not all powers will be to be useful against all types of opponent or bosses.
The game world consists of the two major cities in the DC universe - Gotham and Metropolis - around which you can travel freely. Unlike, say, WoW it is perfectly possible to visit areas that contain mobs that will flatten you in one hit without automatically drawing their attention. There are also two bases, one for Heroes and one for Villains.
The gameplay is surprisingly good and fluid, even if PC players will notice that the game seems to have been designed initially for consoles, there are no real hassles in getting to grips with the controls. However like most MMO's that were originally released as retail games there are elements of the game that are not explained as you are playing such as the chat function. It appears that someone assumed players would be able to read the manual and still can.
The in game help is, well, not really any help at all in this regard as it just sends you to their website which tells you things you already figured out/were told and has this annoying habit of not telling you about the things you wanted to know. DCUO is not unique in having this problem, but it does grate a bit given how easy it is to pick the rest of the game up.
The visuals are impressive, which is not surprising given how young this game is, and the vocals...DCUO holds the record for the most number of actors providing voices in any game. And what actors they got - Batman is voiced by Kevin Conroy and the Joker by Mark Hamill - who have provided the voices for those characters in almost every animated version of them for over 20 years, including the Arkham series*. All of the other major NPC's are likewise voiced by actors who have voiced those characters at least once before, and even minor NPC's are voiced.
(*Note - Neither will be reprising their roles in the latest Arkham game)
This comes at a price though, namely size - the game is over 21 GB in size so it takes a long time to download - for me almost 18 hours. It also has a few technical annoyances, from insisting on checking all the files when you try to start the game through to it sending you to the DCUO home page every time you log out.
Server wise things seem stable, which is a statement that is tempting fate (or just the Joker). The game runs on four servers, two in the US and two in the EU split between a PvE and PvP server. You can get stuck in a queue when logging on during busy times, which is more likely to be a problem for free accounts.
The game has three types of account - Free, Premium and Legendary. Free is for those who haven't paid a penny, Premium for anyone who's spent more than £5 on the game* and Legendary is for subscribers. Some features are disabled for free accounts and limited for Premium users but fully available for Legendary accounts. Upgrading is probably well worth it if you get in to the game to any degree, since it not only allows you to have six rather than two characters. But Premium members are given priority over free accounts in queues - the difference is about 8 seconds versus two minutes or more at busy times.
(*In practice the smallest amount of the 'seven' money you can buy is worth £4.99. So you'd have to spend at least £7.99 to become a premium member. However this amount will allow you to get one of the DLC packs - which is probably what most people would be after anyway.)
Is this worth picking up? I'd say yes, if you can get past the long download time needed. It is VERY good fun and reeks of quality throughout.
