DC Universe Online review

I recently got DCU on Steam and, after a couple days of playing it, I thought I'll whip up a mini-review. I'll keep this short and sweet - I've only played for a few days after all. The idea is to help those on the fence about the game to decide if they want to get in early on.

Overview

As title suggest, DC Universe Online is a superhero MMO. Yes, another one. It released 11/01/11, and is being published by SOE. Costs 30 pounds on Steam, sub is 9.99 per month (or 18.99 if you want access to all SOE MMOs). Like Final Fantasy MMOs before it, it's being released on PC and PS3. The 'hook' is a fully fleshed out world of the DC comics, with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, The Joker and countless other iconic characters making an appearance as questgivers, allies or enemies.

One thing that's worth mentioning (or at least that I found very neat), is the ability to switch between US and EU servers at will. You simply change one option in the game launcher, it downloads a 2mb update and voila, you can play in the fabled lands of the Americas. Other MMO devs should take note.

Character creator

This is the first thing you'll see of course, and kind of a deal maker/breaker for a superhero MMO. This is where the game makes a good first impression. You choose between three hugely varying body types (large, medium, small), although you cannot manually adjust the height or the body of your character, which is kinda of a bummer. What follows is 'mentality' (serious, primal, comedian and so on), which affects the pose and animations of your character, and morality, which is basically the choice between heroes and villains. The two sides have, of course, completely different quests, armour sets and so on.

You also get to choose your movement mode. There are three flight, speed (think The Flash) and acrobatics (think Batman, with climbing the walls and all). All of them seem roughly as good as each other, despite the obvious assumption by many that Flight is the way to go. Flavour choice more than anything else.

Costume creator. This is the big one. If you cannot make your hero look unique and interesting, this game has failed before it even started. Right off the bat - the array of choice and customization possible is not on the level of Champions Online. That game still blows everything else out of the water in the character creator department. However, DCU still does better than almost every single game out there. There are easily 20 different *skin types* for your character, for god's sake. Everything from furry, through rock-guy and lava-guy, to a cyborg. Add too that a wide array of hairstyles, shades, helmets, masks, jumpsuits and big flowing cloaks, and you have a ming-staggering array of choices. You can also colour it all to your will, too.

Classes

Actually, DCU doesn't have classes. It has "Powers". Not that much has changed other than the name, mind you. The array of choices isn't exactly huge, either. Ice, Fire, Nature, Sorcery, Mental and Gadgets (for the fans of Batman/Joker and the like). All of those have two different trees, much like talent specs in WoW - in case of Mental it's Telekinesis and Illusion, while Ice has Cryogenics and Storms, and so on.

What *is* different, is that you pick your weapon type in the character creator and stick with it - changing your weapon type actually requires a full respec. The array of choice there is more impressive... *takes a deep breath* - Brawling, Martial Arts, Two Handed, One Handed, Dual Wield, Dual Pistols, Rifles, Hand Blasters, Staves and Bows. Each has very distinct style, animations and combos. What's refreshing is that your 'class' doesn't tie you to a weapon type. Want to be a Nature guy with a two handed weapon? Go ahead. Mental with a rifle? Knock yourself out. Apparently melee weapons makes it easier to tank, but that's not something I was able to test out myself.

To mix things up, at level 10 (out of 30) you can also choose from an array of Iconic Powers. This is stuff like Superman's heat vision and frost breath, or Batman's triple batarang. Those are independent of your Power choice and if you wish, you can even spec mostly in them - I did that on my Ice tank and it worked quite well.

What's worth mentioning is that each Power set has two roles. Every single 'class' can be dps, then at level 10 they gain their second role - tank for Ice and Fire, healer for Nature and so on. Since you can switch your roll at, literally, a touch of a button, you never need to be tied to a boring role just because that's what raids require you to do.

I almost forgot - you get to choose your Mentor. Those are Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman for heroes, and Lex Luthor, Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill!) or Circe for villains. The choice determines your starting city (Gotham or Metropolis), some of your quests and the armour sets you can get at higher levels.

Gameplay

This is what, in my eyes, sunk Champions Online. That game did so many things very well, but it just didn't make you feel heroic for a long time, and the standard-issue combat system didn't fit a superhero game. Thankfully, DCU is a step up in that department.

You can fly from level 1. At level *3* I flung a car at my opponent while playing the Mental powerset. At level 4, while playing Fire, I called down a meteor from the sky to crush a mob I was fighting, then I *picked up* the meteor and threw it at his friends. The combat itself? It feels tight, punchy, very action-game rather than MMO. With the standard mouse + keyboard setup you may, for instance, have to tap the left key twice and then hold it down to perform a combo. With my two handed hammer I had to hold it down 4 times to launch an enemy into the air. You can also throw stuff (rocks, exploding barrels) at your enemies. It makes sense, it's easy to learn and it's genuinely fun. In my eyes AoC has been dethroned as the MMO with the best combat system.

As for *what* you do... Well, it's not hugely different from your standard MMO fare. You do quests for Superman and co , you beat up bad guys (or gorillas, as case may be), you reap the rewards. It has some nice touches, such as dynamic updates for quests in style of Cataclysm, and the fact that you usually don't need to go back to questgivers to complete quests, but it's not hugely different in design from what you saw before. All quests are fully voiced, which is a nice touch. There's also plenty of small, 1-man instances, usually containing minor villains/heroes from the comics as bosses, which is a nice touch.

Group content... Frankly, I haven't done much of that yet, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. There are Alerts instead of instances, and they work quite differently to what I've seen before. In Area 51, the one I did so far, in the 1st phase you defend your allies under attack of Brainiac's forces, then move over to a nearby section of the base to power up defences and take out the leaders of the invading forces. It's a large, open area, and as you complete one set of objectives another pops up, leading you all the way to the final boss. There are also raids and "duos", though those are locked away at top level and I haven't been able to try them.

PvP stuff - well, there are PvP servers, but I wisely avoided them, expecting the usual launch-month slaughter. As for instanced content there are arenas (I *think* closer to battlegrounds in design, with 4v4 and 8v8 mentioned) and, more interesting, Legends Arena. In Legends you don't play as your own character, but rather one of the iconic DC ones - Batman, Robin, Joker, so on. This way the level and gear difference just isn't there, it's all about the coordination. At 4v4 (Arkham Asylum, the one Legends I have unlocked so far) it's quick, sweet and fun.

Gear

This is a big one - how do you offer players progression via gear without ruining the look they worked so hard to achieve? The DCU solution is pretty much perfect. When you acquire say, a pair of gloves, and put them on, that look is saved for you. You can then use that look for any gloves you will ever find with a couple clicks. Or you could just 'lock' the appearance of your character so that no new item you put on will change it. After just 3 days of play my main has easily 7 - 8 different designs for most of his gear slots. No more clown gear *shakes fist at WoW*.

It's hard to tell how gear-centric the game it is right now, but at least the stats look pretty straightforward. There's no overly complex stuff such as resilience in WoW or critigation in AoC, it all seems to make sense at the moment.

Interface

Well, time to end the praises for DCU. The interface, likely as a result of the game being developed for PS3 as well, is horrid. While you can control your character in combat with no problems, be it with a mouse and keyboard or a pad, if you want to invite to somebody to a group, send them a tell or just talk out in the world... That's a different story. There is no chat bubbles. The chat window is absolutely tiny. There are no local or global chat channels, so local chat is done via /shout. It's really, really bad. Frankly, it didn't cause me much grief while I was flying around, beating up bad guys, but if I wanted to chat with some people... At least the in-game voice chat system is very good.

RP

There is no official RP server, but there is an unofficial one - Virtue and Vice, PvE, over in the US. I was able to play there with no latency issues, so it's no big deal. I haven't seen much random RP around, likely a result of the horrid chat interface, but there seem to be quite a few RP Leagues (guilds) around.

Technical

The graphics are nice. Not amazing, not beautiful, but nice. The tried and tested Unreal engine delivers pleasant graphics and good performance, like it usually does. In fact, I had no lag or technical issues on launch day despite it being, well, launch day. That's more than I could say about the launch of Cata, or any other MMO I can think of.

The required system specs can't be high, since I'm running it maxed out, with good fps (fps is hard-locked at 30) with my venerable Core Duo 2.4ghz.

Summary

It's fun, that's all I can tell you. No way to tell if it'll have long-term staying power yet, but I genuinely enjoy playing it so far. The combat makes or breaks MMO games, in my eyes, and DCU has that covered. There's probably stuff I should have covered but forgot but damn, I've got to walk the dog now anyway. Ask if there's something you'd like to know.

I just remembered one thing I forgot to mention. You have a very limited array of skills you can have on your toolbar, out of the many you can acquire. Nothing revolutionary (think Guild Wars) but it works well.

Mandui wrote:....I still think it was Yoda who said that and not Gandalf...

God damn it, I forgot to disable my troll signature. Fixed now!

Anyway, I decided to upload a couple of screenshots to give you a general idea of the style and the graphics. Both are taken in Metropolis, and feature my guy (The Keeper) and Amethia's hero (Amethia). In the second (with just The Keeper) you can see buildings far off in the distance - yes, you can fly over there and do stuff. The city is pretty big. Us standing on a roof, being heroic. Same, but with Amethia charging up her lazar (in fact it's her weapon of choice, Hand Blasters). The Keeper, just flying above the city.

Will probably be picking it up soon enough, nice review. If one's looking for more stuff about DCUO, I can recommend TB's beta videos.

Chase wrote:Will probably be picking it up soon enough, nice review. If one's looking for more stuff about DCUO, I can recommend TB's beta videos.

Thanks. Absolutely agree about the beta videos, too - they made my decision to buy DCU a lot easier.

I'll be on Virtue and Vice US to, as a hero. Rattlecage. Give me a buzz if you like.

Vectoria/Luciean wrote:I'll be on Virtue and Vice US to, as a hero. Rattlecage. Give me a buzz if you like.

Awesome, I play a hero as well. I'll add you next time I'm in-game.

I'd play the game if I earned money, but I don't which is the sad thing.

I like games like that one, but because it's on a monthly fee, I can't afford it alongside WoW.

All outa gum.

Currently playing Skyshadow on EU Looking For Trouble (PvP), villian side. Gimme a poke, should you drift that way.

Holy Copyright Infringment, Batman! ;D Cool villain. Sadly, though, I play on Vice & Virtue, with the hopes getting some fine superhero RP going.

where is tarcus

Was wondering about this. Is communication between villains and heroes possible?

It is, through the Versus channell. That's public though. Right now communication within your own faction is hard enough, with the chat system as it is ;D.