Meet The Blinding Gaze (yeah I know.. shitty name..) My character for DC Universe Online. After checking out footage and feedback on the game I decided I would give it a shot. This is not a review so much as it will be ongoing coverage of my journey into the world Sony Online Entertainment has created for a DC MMO. I will also be creating a villain so there is certainly a chance that I will have an ongoing series for him, but right now the focus is on this guy. So first off lets start with the story for this game!
Brainiac has invaded Earth with an army of drones and the assistance of all the major super villains of the DC Universe. Brainiac actually succeeds in his plan and takes control of the world killing all the major heroes. The aftermath of this event leaves Lex Luthor in a great state of regret as he did not want to see his home world taken over by lifeless robots. So Luthor steals nanobot technology from Brainiac that can give anyone super powers, taking it to the past and spreading it around the planet so that more heroes can be created and change the future that Luthor comes from. He then informs Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman of the future, and what he has done to change it, in hopes they can train these heroes to be powerful enough to stop Brainiac and his invasion.
This is where you come in! Character creation obviously begins with choice of allegiance and gender. From there you will choose a mentor, and since this fill focus on the heroes that is exactly who we will cover exclusively. Your mentor choices are Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. From decriptions it says each mento determines super powers, but from what I could tell after you choose your hero you have the same choices for primary powers so I won't really know until I am mentored by each hero. For this character I chose Batman (really... did you think I would start off with anyone else?), once you choose a mentor you have a list of powers, they are basically fancy names for party roles. For those of you saying "Party Roles?" these are roles you will have when grouping with other heroes on missions that require more then once person. These main roles are Damage Dealer, Tank (the person who draws the attention of all enemies and takes the brunt of the damage because their defense is so high), and healers. Fire and Ice are the tank powers, Gadgets and Telekinesis are the damage powers, and nature and sorcery are the healing powers. After you choose your powers you then choose your primary weapon of attack. This ranges from hand to hand, to various guns, to dual and two handed weaponry, as well as just shooting beams from your hands. Lastly you will choose your means of travel, which are flying, acrobatics, or super speed.
Now it's time for the biggest part, the costume customization! This is not as vast or detailed as City of Heroes or Champions Online but it's still pretty good. You can choose from various parts for each body part and customize the colors to your liking. You can also change your character's skin to be human, animal like, demonic, lava, etc. When I make a villain I plan to have him be a hulking Lava monster which should look pretty badass. Once you have him created and named your story begins. For my first character I chose gadgets, and super speed, I had seen a video of telekinesis and wasn't very impressed and for my first character I wanted to go damage. Your character starts off on one of Brainiac's ships, Oracle contacts you and guides you through the ship to escape. This is entirely single player and pretty much a tutorial to give you an idea of the controls. The game was honestly designed for a console even though it's also on the PC. combat works more like an action game then a turn based or D&D numbers system. So think Phantasy Star Online with basic and heavy attacks mixed with Marvel Ultimate Alliance where you hold the L2 button to bring up your special moves which will be binded to the face buttons on your controller (if you can't tell yet I got it on PS3, to avoid the worry of system requirements). Combat is simple yet fun with the ability to attack and defend as well as dodge attacks. Once you fight your way off the ship you come in contact with your designated mentor and begin your quests to prove yourself and also be trained. The starting area (especially Batman's) is pretty crowded with new players (it is launch week after all), so there was initial concern that quests would take forever since I am so uses to WoW and kills for quests only count if you encounter the enemy first. This game takes a different approach, for quests that involve "defeat 25 such and such bad guys" as long as you deal damage to the enemy you will still get credit towards your quest if someone else kills him or initiated battle. SOE understood the day 1 frustrations that can be trying to complete quests and made them very forgiving and easy to complete even with so many people. The game is designed to be an enjoyable experience for everyone. They don't want players overwhelmed by huge level caps, and feeling they will never get to experience all the content.
The level cap for now is set to 30 and so far it seems like all the levels are easy to achieve (I got to level 6 in two hours and it felt like nothing). We shall see once I get to the later levels if that remains the case. DCUO also offers simple ways to experience PvP (Player vs Player) as well as dungeons (the harder battles requiring more then one person). This is all accessed through your menu, once you are on the correct tab you can choose from the various other options of the game and it queues you right up for whatever it is you are looking for. When it comes to dungeons there are two different kinds. Duo to give you the hero and sidekick feel to being a superhero. The official name for dungeons meant for more then 2 people escapes me but that it also an option as well as any invites to higher level quests you get from other heroes (like the Justice League) they all will be there for you to select and then it will take you to that content. There will be gear to collect through quests as well as epic armor sets you will be able to purchase from credits you earn from harder points in the game. The cool part about all this is each piece of armor is a different costume piece that unlocks when you equip it. It is then saved to the style tab for you to change the look of your character.
I feel that needs better explanation, When you get a piece of gear it will have stats and when equipped it will change the look of your character and add stats like any other MMO. Then there is a tab next to inventory called "Style" this saves all the different looks from each piece of gear and allows you to re-customize the character at any time to keep his look different or the same. The style tab does not effect the inventory so you will still keep the stats from the best piece of gear you have equipped for each slot. So basically you are just equipping stats and adding the look of the actual armor to your wardrobe to further customize and change your hero. I think it's a really neat idea to be able to always change around and customize your character.
I believe that is all the information I have for day one of my adventure into DC Universe Online. The game shows a lot of promise with a simple yet addicting combat style, good customization, good voice acting so far, and a different MMO experience. I am gonna try to give updates as I made strides in progession. So I am currently looking at not updating until I have reached level 10. Then I will dive into PvP and dungeons and have more of the game to talk about. If you decide to check the game out for yourself LET ME KNOW I can give you server info so that we can save the world together!
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