We should begin by explaining that this review is written by a couple that games together – geared both towards other gamer duos (be they significant others or just friends) and individual gamers.

Fizgig: As a woman who has finally met someone to game with regularly, I am convinced that couple gaming is a new phenomenon and there will increasingly be a call for games that can be played as a dynamic duo. While I will write the overall analysis of the games we review, because we have very different backgrounds and interests, at certain points he will also contribute his own take on different aspects of the game as we discuss in detail the gaming mechanics and enjoyment for duos that are looking to play together.

First Impressions:

Fizgig: This is my first experience with a Massive Mutli-player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) and I have to admit, it has ruined my beloved console games for me, at least for a little while. Although I have been playing console games since I could hold my Atari joystick, I avoided on-line role playing games for many reasons (unfamiliar with online ettiquite, not sure if I really like role playing) and was very pleasantly surprised to find that not only do I love playing this game, but that the game mechanics were intuitive and fun to use.

Cabal: This MMO for me is one of many, I have played pencil and paper games for years as well as computer and text-based MUD's (Multi-User Domain's). I believe my first MMORPG was the beta for Ultima Online. City of Heroes is a very nice change for me, as of now there is no player versus player (PvP) which I am both excited and terrified to see come about. Importantly, I must say CoH has the BEST Customer/Developer support I have ever had the privilege to have at my virtual side while I play.

Fizgig: In City of Heroes you get to create your own hero to fight evil in the city of Paragon. The first step in your character creation is to choose her or his powers, origin, and overall look. Just the character creation tool with CoH is leaps and bounds beyond anything I’ve experienced before and many people seem to spend more time creating characters than playing them.

First, you choose your origin, this explains the general way in which you gained your super powers (Mutant, Science, Technology, Natural, or Magic). When you make your character, the most important decision you will make is their archetype. There are currently five to choose from – the Blaster (a ranged damage dealer that is defensively weak), the Scrapper (a real melee fighter with decent defenses and massive damage output), the Tanker (a shield to her or his team that dished out very little damage but has massive defensive capabilities), the Defender (a defensively moderate character that buffs and heals the team), and the Controller (a defensively weak but overall powerful character whose strength is in their ability to manipulate crowds and can also heal and buff). Within each archetype, you are able to choose two different power sets, so for example you could be a katana/super reflexes scrapper, an assault rifle/devices blaster, or an empathy/dark miasma defender. There are over 45 different power sets to choose from, most available to only certain archetypes. You will also eventually get to choose from Power Pools that are shared between all archetypes. These provide your movement power (super-speed, teleportation, flying, or super-leap) as well as additional fighting or buffing abilities (such as invisibility or healing powers).

As you progress through the game, you build power and abilities from the sets available to your archetype. Because Cabal and I play together, we usually create teams that involve one damage dealer and one healer/support character. I originally thought I would prefer to play damage dealers but as we’ve advanced in levels, I find playing a controller my favorite because I find it more challenging becasue there are multiple tasks to keep track of at once (my favorite character is an Ice/Kinetics controller so I freeze a villain there, steal the power from another across the room, heal Cabal's melee fighter, then lay down an area of effect group control spell, all within 10 seconds!). Your choice will probably be based on your style of play though it is always fun playing a variety of different archetypes to see how each of them work.

Next you choose your superhero’s gender, size, and costume – be warned, this step can take the longest (Cabal: and she does mean hours), even for those of us not that interested in clothes and hair. While most clothing options are fairly revealing, not all are and you can mix and match hundreds of thousands of face, mask, hair, body, clothing, boot/shoe types and colors which makes for hours of fun. When creating a character you can choose her size (both height and build) though there is a standard DD breast size that I wish would have scaled with my female characters’ overall size. Despite this shortcoming, the character creation tool lends itself to almost unlimited creativity. This means that the thousands of other heroes playing all tend to have unique stories, looks, and powers which also provides hours of entertainment just looking at what other people have created.

Finally you will pick your original name and then proceed to the tutorial that walks you through the basic steps of general movement, fighting evil, managing and advancing your powers, and meeting contacts to gather different missions. Once you complete the tutorial and enter Paragon City you are immediately immersed in a rich and complex world with a detailed history that should make any comic buff happy. Taking its cue from the traditional lore of comic books, you will encounter heroes from the great Rikti War – an invasion from the aliens known as the Rikti that destroyed huge parts of the city. You will fight fallen heroes that have begun using their powers for evil. You will see how the factions of evil become more and more intertwined as they increasingly attempt to destroy Paragon!

Graphics:

Fizgig: The graphics of CoH is a mixed bag with some areas amazingly rich and others depressingly flat. Overall, the feel of Paragon City is one of a real bustling city under threat of constant evil. Some of the textures and areas are breathtakingly beautiful. There are large bodies of water in many parts of the city and I have found them almost hypnotic on occasion. The power activation graphics also range from ho-hum to dazzling. The first time I did an area of effect ice block with my Controller and froze 10 villains into huge, crackling, blue blocks of ice I actually laughed out loud the look was so amazing.

Cabal: I on the other hand find the graphics to be very good on the whole and I find that the "flat" areas are specifically made that way based on the neighborhood you’re in. The graphic element I find the most exciting is the chance during certain missions or story-arc's to get a temporary power which includes a whole new graphic for your character or an added element such as a "Nemesis Staff" that you pull out and use to your hearts content...or until five real days are up.

Fizgig: One of the major shortcomings is the mission graphics – many of the missions are in the exact same warehouse or office setting with only the villains you fight changing. The developers seem to be making an attempt to update these and over time I would expect them to become more diverse. For now, the repetitive graphics of some missions become a bore over time and I found myself overly excited by even a small change in setting (such as the addition of a huge, burning pink sofa in the lobby of an office building).

Sound/Music:

Fizgig: The sound effects of the powers are fabulous, almost too fabulous. The protective bubbles I make with my force field Defender can actually produce such a nauseating waa-waa sound that is difficult to ignore. As you travel through city areas, a short musical number will play that I sometimes find amusing in that it suddenly appears from nowhere and reminds me of the relative musical silence during the rest of the game. Since most interaction is done through thought bubbles and chat windows the lack of great music doesn’t detract from the game play. In the city, there are cars passing with booming music from the windows, monorail trains clacking by, and the general ambient noises of daily city life. They have recently added the sound of a woman screaming that at first bothered me until I saw its source - a male cop, flailing his arms, and screaming like a little girl while running from the bad guys.

Gameplay:

Fizgig: Game play involves a combination of street battles against the numerous villains of Paragon City and missions given to you by various contacts that warn you of impending doom. Missions vary greatly, from saving five students kidnapped by a group of mystics, to diffusing bombs set by the paramilitary villains to go off in a warehouse in less then a hour (where you are literally given an hour of real time to find them all), to searching for ancient texts in the belly of an undead armies alternate dimension. These involve your character in continuing and varied storylines that act almost as a choose your own adventure tale allowing you to pursue story arcs that intrigue you while letting others fall by the way side.

Cabal: By far my favorite gameplay aspects are the story arcs, which entail a string of missions and meetings that follow a certain comic book type story element. For instance tracking down information and finally beating a robotic offshoot division of the notorious "5th Column" villain group. I enjoy these because of the storyline, and the obvious foreshadowing of things to come, as well as the "souvenir" and high-level enhancement that you get upon completing these arc's.

Fizgig: The game interface itself is intuitive and easy to learn. I was originally intimidated by the possible complexities of an on-line game (i.e. fighting a villain while chatting with a stranger and trying to manage my powers at the same time) but the actual mechanics were so streamlined and the learning curve so quick that I had no problems mastering multiple aspects of the game. How you move and fight is very customizable and I quickly found what worked for me and have stuck with it ever since.

As with the graphics, the game play in general can get a bit repetitive at times and I found myself wishing for a calamity to strike Paragon City so I could rush to the city’s defense. To their credit, such city-wide “invasion” events are apparently planned and should bring together the heroes from multiples city areas and levels to fight for the city together. This is also broken up with real-time events such as the Halloween trick-or-treat weekend where you could run across the city opening doors to receive either a treat (such as a temporary power) or a trick (a group of three Halloween themed villains such as witches or zombies would emerge from the door for you to fight). Another recent addition are “badges” which you get for killin a certain number of a particular villain, visiting hidden areas, or reading a series of historical markers about Paragon City’s past. A collecting frenzy has ensued and some people spend hours just trying to achieve as many badges as possible. After certain badge combinations are gathered, you can also gain additional powers or weapons.

One other thing to mention - without the recommended PC setup you will have a very difficult time playing CoH. Playing with a slow processor or dial-up modem will lead to hours of frustration and mapserver disconnects. Without a high quality video card the graphics will loose a great deal of their depth and detail. Even with a broadband connection we experience lag and I cannot imagine how annoying it would be to try and play with a sub-optimal setup.

Enjoyment:

Fizgig: This has been one of the most enjoyable games we’ve played as a duo. Few games get my heart racing in battle one second then provides an interactive environment allowing me to joke with a player from Korea the next. Because it is City of Heroes (unlike the soon to be released City of Villains), the community of gamers seem to be unusually kind, helpful, and interested in playing a fun game.

Cabal: As a long time MMO player I am very happy that Fiz got to be introduced to a game that does have an extremely kind and fun oriented community. I am sure the rest of the veterans out there would agree that not all on line games or even individual servers consist of a majority of players that don't seem to consider themselves "l33t" or in some way consider themselves superior to every other player, which I find a very refreshing uniqueness to CoH.

Multiplayer:

Fizgig: The best aspect of this game is the teaming mechanics. Certain archetypes can solo better than others, but playing as a team we have found that there are a few almost unstoppable dynamic duos that are a pure joy to play together. In-game, you can form teams of up to eight players to go on missions and fight street battles. There are easy to use chat windows and the interactive, real-time nature of these teams are generally great fun. While the actual storylines and missions can become repetitive at times, the smooth teaming mechanics and the ability to interact with whatever size team you desire has kept us playing despite occasional lulls in story advancement. I would go so far as to suggest that it really is the multiplayer aspect of CoH that keeps the majority of people playing.

For those not playing with a partner, finding a team on-line can sometimes be difficult though it often depends on your archetype. An Empathy Defender will rarely look for a team for more than a minute while an Ice Controller might look for a long time before finding a group to play with. There are certain areas of the city where there are always people hanging out looking to team up and some of the most fun we’ve had has been on big teams we joined just to complete a mission or do some street hunting. Beyond teams, it is also possible to form Super Groups, which are exactly what they sound like – a more permanent group of heroes banding together under a common theme. Some people eventually form very active Super Groups that can guarantee that you will be able to team up with other SG members whenever you want.

Cabal: I agree with Fizgig completely on this. I play a primarily solo-able character but teamed up there are few occasions that we cannot find a way out of sudden danger. Gaming together in the same room also offers many advantages, verbally being able to tell each other who is in trouble or what buff we need recharged is invaluable. I have also noticed that when we game with others in a large group we find ourselves in more of a leadership role. Because of our ability to talk to each other, Fizgig can tell me when our healer/buffer/blaster/controller needs help with a villain that I can "pull" off of them and I can tell her when our other scrapper/tanker needs buffs, heals or a quick mezz break.

Fizgig: While the vast majority are solo-able, some missions require a team of two or more to simultaneously diffuse bombs or take on super villains. At certain points, you are also able to do much more involved missions called task forces and trials that require a team of four or more. These can last up to 7 or 8 hours and involve epic stories of battling evil on numerous fronts. While fun, these are never required and more casual players who have no desire to play for 8 hours straight are never left without interesting missions to accomplish. Most times these task forces are very fun and story rich, but some can be a repetitive hell to say the least.

By far the most creative aspect of teaming in CoH is the Sidekick option. Because we sometimes have heroes of differing levels that we want to play together, we are able to sidekick the lower level hero to the higher level so the characters are still able to effectively play together. This has provided the flexibility and fun to play whomever we want to and still team up as equals in crime fighting.

Overall Impression:

Fizgig: Well, who hasn’t daydreamed about running into a burning building and emerging the hero with the baby unharmed? Super-leaping over tall buildings? Or flying into battle against evil to save the city from certain destruction? This game taps into two things I love, the idea of being a superhero fighting crime, and gaming in a very duo friendly environment with my partner. This has been the most dynamic and interactive game we’ve played together yet and I would highly recommend it to duos that are looking to explore the world of on-line gaming together.

Cabal: I am a long time comic book fan and a long time gamer and I find this MMORPG to be one of the finest fusions of the two that I can imagine and wonder why it hadn't been tried earlier. I commend both the developers and writers of this game who have both an intrinsic understanding of comic story and of the sub-culture who enjoys them.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

Fizgig: In general, this is a very woman friendly game in that you really do create the character you will play, give her the look personality, powers, and skills that you want then act them out in game play. You can be a scantily clad vixen with mind control powers, a staid professorial type with the ability to freeze those you look at, a 6 foot leather wearing goliath with a huge axe, a demure healer who helps other heroes, a good old-fashioned spandex wearing, Wonder Woman type heroine – or just about anything else your imagination can come up with.

Cabal: I am honestly amazed how many players won't believe that my fiancée is a woman especially when they commend her play before they realize that she is a woman. I get private messages asking, "Is she REALLY a girl?" or players simply won't accept it. It's with these communiqué’s that I am reminded how male-centric this culture is, and the need to incorporate the female market is necessary if MMORPG's plan to maintain their sales.

Fizgig: As Cabal said, while sometimes players will deny that any real women play CoH, and this does remain a generally male dominated genre, the presence of women is clearly felt in CoH and I suspect that an increasing number of women will play as the online market becomes more accessible. There seems to be a genuine desire to incorporate women into the game and the developers are keen to hear from and incorporate women’s desires and interests. For example, there has been enough feedback from women playing about the set DD cup breast size that they promise a more scalable body type that gives the option of a smaller, more “scrappy” body type as well. This kind of attention makes me feel like they are genuinely dedicated to bringing in and keeping women gamers.