Champions Online (PC)

This game was the second Super Hero genre game made by Cryptic Studios, the first was City of Heroes (CoH). After having played both there are many aspects of this game that made me feel like I was playing an improved version of CoH instead of a different title. The customization of your character and powers is very powerful. If you have played CoH and liked it then you'll love Champions Online. However, if you have played MMOs by other teams that you liked more than CoH then you probably won't like Champions. The game lacks an overarching storyline in part due to all of the customization. This is both a boon and a bane. For people who like following clues to unlock a story, this is not your game. If you prefer to make your story up as you go (and you like comic heroes) then this is your place to be. The publisher has recently announce that they are changing from a subscription based service to a Free-to-Play model so some of the information in the product description may not be accurate.

From the start you can tell how much it resembles a comic book. It really does. Unlike WoW, you can actually move around when fighting and during some fights you actually have to use the "Guard" command to reduce the damage of an enemies attack. The enemies are separated into 4 different types: Henchmen, Villian, Super-Villian, Super-Villian(boss). The henchmen are the easy enemies that can be killed with a few hits (i've killed one with just a single shot before) and you usually end up fighting around 2 or 3 of these guys at one time (and for future reference EVERY enemy in the game has a ranged attack). The Villian are a bit harder than the Henchmen and usually take a few more hits, these are the first guys that use attacks (you can see them glowing) that knock you back or do major damage unless you guard, their health bar has a black line in the center of it. The Super-Villian is separated into 2 categories. In some areas you will fight Super-Villians as part of a quest you usually fight them one-on-one or they are sometimes surrounded by henchmen and you can just pick them off one-by-one and then fight the Super-Villian. They have 2 black bars in their health bar and do a lot of damage even with just the ranged attack, it's a good idea to have a friend to deal with these guys, but if you like to solo then it is possible to fight them with skill and strategic use of your hero's skills. The Super-Villain (boss) is the final boss of a "chapter" during which these guys have 2 black bars in their health bar and a spiked circle where it shows their level (normal enemies only have plain circles showing their level). Each boss has their own special set of moves and guarding and evading are the only ways stay alive, if you do end up dying you will respawn in a previous room before the boss but the boss will still have whatever damage you did to him still dealt to him.