The Quarter Bin

We’ve got even more comic MMO goodness for you guys thanks to the keen eye of cub reporter Coop. He got a glimpse of what Take-Two is planning with their upcoming game, Champions Online. Hit the jump to see what Coop thinks of this comic-based console MMO.

While walking around Take-Two’s room at the Electronics Entertainment Expo I noticed a lot of people wearing Champions Online shirts, and eventually I asked if I could get a sneak peak. I was ushered into a room with a few other members of the press where two Xbox 360’s were playing the game, live in the room. It wasn’t a demo, or a video, it was the full game, and they were connected to the Champions Online servers.

The graphics were made to suite a superhero game well, and are stylized to appear as comic-like and cartooney as possible. Hitting enemies even displayed the occasional “BAM” or “SMASH,” further immersing me into the game. Gameplay looked like a typical MMO in terms of combat, but has more action elements than traditional MMORPGs. Giving players the ability to block, grab, and complete other actions should set the game apart from the typical RPG experience. The developers at Cryptic, who were demoing the game, promised us that there would be an unprecedented amount of customization, in both the looks and abilities of the heroes. From our limited look it did appear that there were many different ways to build characters, and I hope that they are successful in living up to this promise.

The section we saw was small, and featured the two heroes hunting down ASCII Oakley, the leader of a group of robotic cowboys that had malfunctioned and were attacking innocent civilians. After killing enough robots, ASCII Oakly spawned, which was directly related to how well the players fought the minions.

After the session I asked the guys at Cryptic about Champion’s nemesis system. The confirmed that sometime during the early stages of your character you will create your villain, who will be a nuisance throughout the game in ways that the developers couldn’t say. What they DID say is that you will be able to play as your nemesis during the game, but couldn’t elaborate. That’s right, you will be able to play as your own villain. My imagination has gone wild with ideas as to how this can be implemented, but none of them make much sense.

My time with Champions was short and I didn’t get to actually play it, but the Cryptic said that they will be in contact with Gamervision in the near future so we can bring you more information on their extremely exciting MMORPG. Right now it’s dated as Spring 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PC, so stay tuned.

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