At this year’s E3, I had the chance to spend some time playing DCUO. I walked in with hesitations, I’m not going to lie. I had many concerns before getting some hands on time. I was unsure about making a game in this universe, it seemed too limiting. So many giant boots are already filled up – I would say to capacity. I suppose Metropolis and Gotham are large enough that the big boys can’t be everywhere at once. I also had issues with the combat, especially when I heard it was going to the PS3. Is it going to become a button smasher? What about the end-game?
Find out about this and more, After the Break!
(cont.) I started my E3 journey, this year, with a demonstration of a hero smashing his way through a story to get to Harley Quinn. She seems to have kidnapped Robin, my first reaction was to let her keep him… but Batman asked for your help, can’t really say no to him. The hero was a gadget-based, sword-wielding, bad ass with a cape. He was thrown instantly into action jumping right into a group of thugs. The entire level was designed like a demented toyland with giant presents everywhere. The hero’s movement specialty was acrobatics, you can use this as a weapon, but the only thing I witnessed was jumping down on a group of guys to knock them down.
Some of the things that impressed me with this demonstration was the pace of the action, and the fluidity of the combat. You can quickly move from target to target and unleash a ton of special abilities that refresh before you know it. They have a, I believe, proprietary physics engine that is quite impressive for not being GPU-based and they take full advantage of it. One of the weapons this hero had was a freeze-like ray that turned the bad guys into a giant ball of ice. They would roll down stairs and you can even pick them up to throw them or slam them down on some poor sap nearby. One small thing was the way gear works when looted. If you come across something with great stats, but it doesn’t go with your outfit, you can ‘hide it’ leaving your previous piece of armor keeping the stats of the new loot.
SOE reps claim to be ready for the end-game. Players can get into PVP battles to help build up their notoriety and fame once they are at the max level. I played PVP on the PS3 and I had some fun once I got used to it. There will be plenty of raid-like encounters for those that enjoy PVE gaming. I will be curious to see more about this game, especially the stuff revolving around the story of your hero. I left the presentation wanting to see more, so I suppose this is a good thing. That said, my hesitations really haven’t gone away. I hope they can pull it off, this one has potential.
