Zero Punctuation: DC Universe Online

[Gralian]

Yep...Americans..we're the only ones...we're such freaks...and everyone of your nationality is normal and just like you. Golly, I wish I was like you too!

That sarcasm wasn't needed. I didn't say Americans were freaks. Nor did i say everyone of my nationality was "normal", nor did i say i was "normal". Don't put words into my mouth, and look again.

I'll never really get the American fixation on comics and superheroes.

I said there was a fixation. Comics seem to be a much larger part of American culture than most other places. I know the Japanese have manga, but that's not quite the same as what i mean here. I see a lot of affinity for comic book heroes and villains from Americans, be it from our own Moviebob, the way many people were hyped for MVC3 and even the film industry. Hollywood is pumping out... what, two Superhero movies in one go? Wonderwoman and the Green Lantern? Europe just hasn't seem to have taken off with the appeal of comic book heroes. But you know, it's hardly surprising, considering Marvel and DC both originate from America. Of course you'll get Europeans who enjoy comic books, but generally speaking, Americans seem to 'get into it' a lot more.

 

[beema]

The entire concept of this particular momorrpuguh had me a bit confused from the start. Basing a game in an already established universe of characters where you can't actually play as any of the characters, but instead as their store brand knock-offs. I don't see much appeal in that.

 

[sshplur]

I swear, some of Yahtzee's analogies are fucking hilarious.

Now to clean up all the coke on my screen.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

nice i heard a skinner box reference.
also nice ending but over all it was not that funny. try again next week

 

[kouriichi]

Pretty much confirmed my expectations. As I'm not a big comic book fan (I only watch the movies/play occasional game) I highly doubted I'd enjoy this.

Honestly, dont belive what he says about this. Hes one of my faovrites and averything, but he didnt bother to mention a single good quality about it.

Like the fact that character customization takes place even after you decide your hero. Every item you get gives you a new costume peice, so you can change your looks litterally, when ever you look. You could be in the middle of combat trying to figure out what hair style you enjoy.

He also described it as button mashing, when really, there are alot of combos you unlock. Just mashing buttons severly hampers your damage out put.

Honestly, i went into the game with my suspicions, but im still playing it this day and having a great time. Because its much more active then other games. You dont stand there going "1-2-2-2-2-3-1-2-2-2" over and over for hours on end. And every quest is FULLY VOICED. Thats right. You dont have to stand there and read a wall of text. The hero/villain you choose and your mentor pops up on screen, and tells you what to do in amazing good voice acting.

I would give this mmo a try. You know, and go through the first 30 days that comes with it. You will probably be surpirsed by how much fun it is.

And lets face it, how many games for 50 bucks accually last a month these days?

 

[Drummodino]

Pretty much confirmed my expectations. As I'm not a big comic book fan (I only watch the movies/play occasional game) I highly doubted I'd enjoy this.

Honestly, dont belive what he says about this. Hes one of my faovrites and averything, but he didnt bother to mention a single good quality about it.

Like the fact that character customization takes place even after you decide your hero. Every item you get gives you a new costume peice, so you can change your looks litterally, when ever you look. You could be in the middle of combat trying to figure out what hair style you enjoy.

He also described it as button mashing, when really, there are alot of combos you unlock. Just mashing buttons severly hampers your damage out put.

Honestly, i went into the game with my suspicions, but im still playing it this day and having a great time. Because its much more active then other games. You dont stand there going "1-2-2-2-2-3-1-2-2-2" over and over for hours on end. And every quest is FULLY VOICED. Thats right. You dont have to stand there and read a wall of text. The hero/villain you choose and your mentor pops up on screen, and tells you what to do in amazing good voice acting.

I would give this mmo a try. You know, and go through the first 30 days that comes with it. You will probably be surpirsed by how much fun it is.

And lets face it, how many games for 50 bucks accually last a month these days?

Thing is I live in Australia, for me the game will be $100 to $120. As I'm starting university this year (hence I'm not gonna have a lot of money) I'm not gonna spend that much money on a game unless I know for sure that I will really enjoy it. The only games I'm considering buying this year are Portal 2 and inFamous 2.

 

[Wulfclaw]

I said there was a fixation. Comics seem to be a much larger part of American culture than most other places. I know the Japanese have manga, but that's not quite the same as what i mean here. I see a lot of affinity for comic book heroes and villains from Americans, be it from our own Moviebob, the way many people were hyped for MVC3 and even the film industry. Hollywood is pumping out... what, two Superhero movies in one go? Wonderwoman and the Green Lantern? Europe just hasn't seem to have taken off with the appeal of comic book heroes. But you know, it's hardly surprising, considering Marvel and DC both originate from America. Of course you'll get Europeans who enjoy comic books, but generally speaking, Americans seem to 'get into it' a lot more.

Are you sure about Japan? From what i see here in the middle (europe ) the japanese manga "fixation" _dwarfs_ the love for comics in america (nd i don't say that either of it would be bad).

BTT:

He also described it as button mashing, when really, there are alot of combos you unlock. Just mashing buttons severly hampers your damage out put.

Honestly, i went into the game with my suspicions, but im still playing it this day and having a great time. Because its much more active then other games. You dont stand there going "1-2-2-2-2-3-1-2-2-2" over and over for hours on end. And every quest is FULLY VOICED. Thats right. You dont have to stand there and read a wall of text. The hero/villain you choose and your mentor pops up on screen, and tells you what to do in amazing good voice acting.

This.
It's the first MMORPG with an immersive combat system. Unlike every other mouse driven MMO out there, you play it like a brawler, ideally with a game controller (XBox 360, Logitech, etc.). You have only 6 Slots for skills and have to choose witch of the many active skills you want to take with you in your next fight (Guild Wars did this with success before). There are roles attached to each character, so you can DPS (every char) or fullfill a specific role (tanking, controller, healer) as you want by pressing a key and changing that role (with added bonus stats).

The Quests/Instances tie in the game world, are fully voiced and intresting, even if done a second or third time.

You can change your appearance during the game freely game by equipping new costume pieces and you can change the colour set freely every time you want.

It's great for someone who reads comics, to see the heroes and villains come to live in great quality.

BUT:
- The targeting is awfull
- the chat system is awfull
- if you are not into comics or brawler, the percieved play quality sinks very fast


Let's just hope they carry through with the "one content update per month/two month" thing.

 

[Turbo_ski]

Hey if Yahtzee's going to do the Super hero MMO's I'de like to hear which he prefers, City of Heroes or Champions online now that Champions is free to play, mostly I want to know which is better because I've been trying Champions for free and been loving it and have been considering paying the $15 a month subscriction but I gotta know which is better first.

As lovely looking Champions is, CoH is the better game.

-Powers and Difficulty are balanced fairly and can be adjusted to wild extremes for more of a challenge (and more of a reward).
-More story arcs and team-focused missions
-More costume options and power customization options
-Loot that scales to any lvl range for extra bonuses, but can be entirely ignored if desired
-Power choices are more limited but that's a good thing considering how much Champions mishandled letting you have access to all powers.
-Mission creator system to let you make your own villain groups and story arcs to upload and share with the community. The villain groups incredibly more customizable than the Nemesis system in champions.
-City of Heroes has it's own original story, where as Champions Online was blatantly obvious scraped from the canceled Marvel MMO project (see things like giant green mutant spawned from radiation hopping around Arizona and destroying things in a blind rage)
-Stronger community in general.
-No block mechanic is a huge plus.

 

[Arkitext]

One of the few games I've actually played that Yahtzee's reviewed, and I can't help noticing how wildly inaccurate some of this review is.

It's like it's written by somebody who made up their mind about the game before even playing it. Then sat down to find and enlarge as many minor flaws about the game as possible, without highlighting any of the good stuff.

Wait... what am I saying!? This is a Yahtzee review! That's exactly what happened.

 

[anonymity88]

The midlife infinite crisis line really cracked me up for some reason. It's not even that funny. >_>

 

[The Youth Counselor]

Or for that matter Bruce Wayne explaining things to his accountant.

I actually recall a scene in a comic where Lucius Fox (who in the comics is neither a scientific genius or aware of Bruce's alter ego) confronted Bruce Wayne about some ridiculously huge and expensive items such as jets and helicopters disappearing from their inventories. Bruce just smiled and optimistically announced that they could declare them with insurance and get a tax loss.

 

[Watchmacallit]

He didn't even mention how empty the servers are. And there are only 4. 2 PvE and 2 PvP

 

[TheEnglishman]

Pretty much confirmed my expectations. As I'm not a big comic book fan (I only watch the movies/play occasional game) I highly doubted I'd enjoy this.

Honestly, dont belive what he says about this. Hes one of my faovrites and averything, but he didnt bother to mention a single good quality about it.

Like the fact that character customization takes place even after you decide your hero. Every item you get gives you a new costume peice, so you can change your looks litterally, when ever you look. You could be in the middle of combat trying to figure out what hair style you enjoy.

He also described it as button mashing, when really, there are alot of combos you unlock. Just mashing buttons severly hampers your damage out put.

Honestly, i went into the game with my suspicions, but im still playing it this day and having a great time. Because its much more active then other games. You dont stand there going "1-2-2-2-2-3-1-2-2-2" over and over for hours on end. And every quest is FULLY VOICED. Thats right. You dont have to stand there and read a wall of text. The hero/villain you choose and your mentor pops up on screen, and tells you what to do in amazing good voice acting.

I would give this mmo a try. You know, and go through the first 30 days that comes with it. You will probably be surpirsed by how much fun it is.

And lets face it, how many games for 50 bucks accually last a month these days?

I personally disagree with every point you just said. Yahtzee was spot on the money.

I honestly didn't care that I could customise my character after the innitial customisation phase because the customisation is rubbish, you're effectivly given a choice between stupid helmet, or even stupider helmet.

As for button mashing. Yes, you can learn new combo's. You learn the most powerful one, and you re-use it over and over and over again until everyone who needs to be dead is dead. I suppose you could do lots of different button combo's when in a fight and feel fancy, but that seems pointless as it means your doing some fancy punching when you could just repeatedly shoot fire balls in the enemies face until they learn to just bliddy die.

As for the voicing. It was O.K. Just O.K. The acual heroes do a fine job of telling you who they want dead an get on with it, I chose Superman and Lex Luthor so maybe I picked a bad option. Everyone else has the same 3 lines of dialogue they'll spout over and over again until you go crazy. And that doesn't make up for the fact that the game play is total rubbish.

I played this for about two weeks I think, than gave up and sold it off. My recomendation, don't suffer like I had to, watching your favourite Universe being turned into a monotomous job where after a few missions you find yourself thinking "Oh God! Superman wants me to save the day by hitting stuff a lot again!"

This game is bad and should not be bought.

 

[Nashidar]

Bums for sure!

 

[Wulfclaw]

Pretty much confirmed my expectations. As I'm not a big comic book fan (I only watch the movies/play occasional game) I highly doubted I'd enjoy this.

Honestly, dont belive what he says about this. Hes one of my faovrites and averything, but he didnt bother to mention a single good quality about it.

Like the fact that character customization takes place even after you decide your hero. Every item you get gives you a new costume peice, so you can change your looks litterally, when ever you look. You could be in the middle of combat trying to figure out what hair style you enjoy.

He also described it as button mashing, when really, there are alot of combos you unlock. Just mashing buttons severly hampers your damage out put.

Honestly, i went into the game with my suspicions, but im still playing it this day and having a great time. Because its much more active then other games. You dont stand there going "1-2-2-2-2-3-1-2-2-2" over and over for hours on end. And every quest is FULLY VOICED. Thats right. You dont have to stand there and read a wall of text. The hero/villain you choose and your mentor pops up on screen, and tells you what to do in amazing good voice acting.

I would give this mmo a try. You know, and go through the first 30 days that comes with it. You will probably be surpirsed by how much fun it is.

And lets face it, how many games for 50 bucks accually last a month these days?

I personally disagree with every point you just said. Yahtzee was spot on the money.

I honestly didn't care that I could customise my character after the innitial customisation phase because the customisation is rubbish, you're effectivly given a choice between stupid helmet, or even stupider helmet.

Well, thats personal taste, is it not? I have seen some great costume designs from dropped and bought costume pieces. But you can't argue about personal taste.

As for button mashing. Yes, you can learn new combo's. You learn the most powerful one, and you re-use it over and over and over again until everyone who needs to be dead is dead. I suppose you could do lots of different button combo's when in a fight and feel fancy, but that seems pointless as it means your doing some fancy punching when you could just repeatedly shoot fire balls in the enemies face until they learn to just bliddy die.

I am sorry, but that is plain wrong. Enemies tend to become immune to a combo and power, if you spam it to much. The system is built around fluid alternating combos and it works. If someone doesn't want to learn and use the combo/power system, then it's their personal taste. I for one learned the different combos from different weapons and have fun chaining a effective and cool looking fight (and bring the combo-meter up).

 

[VulakAerr]

This is one of my favourite ZPs ever. He is spot on with his take on this game. It doesn't just fall into the same traps as many MMOs and doesn't do anything to set itself apart. In fact, it does many things worse and is one of the least enjoyable games I've played in recent times.

It's just... lazy. Really lazy. To not even get the chat system right in an MMO is unforgiveable.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

As for button mashing. Yes, you can learn new combo's. You learn the most powerful one, and you re-use it over and over and over again until everyone who needs to be dead is dead. I suppose you could do lots of different button combo's when in a fight and feel fancy, but that seems pointless as it means your doing some fancy punching when you could just repeatedly shoot fire balls in the enemies face until they learn to just bliddy die.

As someone already mentioned, that's not true. You *need* combos and the right powers to survive a battle, you can't just button mash or grind the same super-power. There is actually a bug in the game that occasionally locks combos and you're stuck with just mashing and that's ironically as good a way as any to see why combos are needed. I have been playing since launch and the combination of the right powers *has* made the difference between different bosses. It's not God of War, but for an MMO, it's pretty impressive.

He didn't even mention how empty the servers are. And there are only 4. 2 PvE and 2 PvP

I *wish* the servers were empty. I would maybe then get to play an alert before the 40-minute-mark-wait.

 

[Michael826]

I interest in this game was only very fleeting. I came to the conclusion that it would most likely be boring and repetetive with no real engaging elements. Seems I was correct. I still have plenty of games clogging up my back-catalogue anyway.

 

[Misho-]

OMG You mentioned City of Heroes!!!! I still play that game! ! Way to go Yahtzee!

What I don't like about DC Universe (or the previous Marvel one[the cancelled one]) and I like about City (and Champions to some degree) is that you don't feel like the sidekick. Sure in Cox there's Statesman (or Recluse) with all his mates, but they mostly keep to the sidelines and give you quests. Once you accept that you really feel like the Hero/Villain. In DC I always feel like a Batman Clone (in my case) and under the main cast of characters' shadow. And that blows.

Really because feeling like a side kick is exactly what I hated about CoX. You never go out and do your own thing you're forever handed odd jobs by random street people who wont even give you their bloody phone number until you've saved the city from impending doom a few times. Then there's the boss battles where you have to team up 8 vs 1 against the epic hero/villain (Recluse, Statesmen, and God help you Hero 1) That did a LOT to make me feel like a second rate side kick with delusions of grandeur.

The best moment I ever had in CoX happened in the first day I played where I created a villain and went and pulled a bank job. That was the first, and only, time I actually felt like a real villain and not an errand boy with questionable morals.

I thought DC did a much better job of it pitting you one on one against named and well known hero and villains. What I hated was there was no real teaming mechanic or incentive in place which made the whole thing a really repetitive single player game. But at least the story telling was head and tails above CoX. CoX has gotten better with its stories but there's still a lot content from the game's earlier days that is just painful to read.

As for Champions Online. I've never played it because I HATE the art style.

Lol as for the Champions Online rant +1

But as for Cox, I really gotta say (althought it's your own opinion of course) I disagree, maybe it's because I like to Roleplay (yeah alone, I'm sad) but I don't feel bogged down by the fact that you have to team up with 8 other players to take on Archvillians. Actually if I recall correctly that's how the Avengers originally came to be, Thor, Ironman and ermmm Ant Man (help me out here) had to team up agaisnt an enraged Hulk (provoked by Loki) and after the battle they decided to create a team (supergroup if you will) to face threats no single hero could handle.

As for the errands... Well I gotta say, all MMOrpgs even DCUO have errands, the combat is faster (and more entertaining) given, but that's just the structure of the game.

I'm sorry for Jim Lee, but when he said a game like DCUO is better than CoX and the likes just because it has more history behind it and people already know what's going on so that you just simply jump in and enjoy. (Not verbatim) He was wrong, I rather play a game like Cox or even ChampOnline because eliminating the backstory of like 60+ years and starting fresh I can really feel like a major league player starting my own big adventures.

And I know it doesn't count now, but since you can tweak the missions in City of Heroes now, you can play and defeat Archvillians on your own (changing them to Elite Bosses, which is a step down). It's not like playing and defeating Green Lantern on your own, but at least in Cox they won't get up and run away after you defeat them.

I would rather play a new IP game in with the mechanics of DCUO on the PS3, than DCUO.

I know this makes me sound like a Cox (or even a Marvel) fanboy, but I like idea behind it. Complaining about the established characters in a story aside your own it's like playing D&D and complaining there's NPCs who are more powerful than you.

 

[Void(null)]

I would rather play a new IP game in with the mechanics of DCUO on the PS3, than DCUO.

Agreed. I like DCUO's mechanics and if another game came along with the same set up using a unique IP I would jump ship... but as it stands DCUO has made me feel far more heroic and wicked than City has in the past 7 years.

Jack inserted his Penis... errm I mean "Statesman" into bloody everything. Every quest, every story, every plot line there is always something going back to Statesman. And just how many versions of his Penis do we need? Statesman, Recichsman, Emperor Cole, Imperious... all the same bloody guy.

Whats worse is that Jack doesn't even work there anymore and yet still we have to suck his dick daily. City of Heroes New Issue! How far do you have to cram Jacks Penis down your throat this time!

I have been running Paper and Radio Missions for the past 3 years just so as not to have to deal with it.