I long ago pre-ordered SOE’s DC Universe Online, but this was my first opportunity to play it, in beta, on the PC. Though it’s on the PC, the little picture hints and controls clearly expect you to be using a PS3 controller to play the game. I don’t have a PS3 controller, but I do have a XBox controller, so I plugged it in and away I went.
In a niche genre already filled by City of Heroes, Champions Online, and Avenger Babies Super Hero Squad Online, it must be asked what DCUO brings to the table?
After admittedly only a few hours of play, I can think of two things right off: The Justice League and the PS3 integration. If you want to fight aside Batman, Superman, the Joker and their pals, DCUO is the only game that’s gonna let ya. And if you want to play an MMO on the PS3, again, you have nowhere else to go but DCUO. On the PC, however, the cup runneth over, and there’s nothing to particularly distinguish the game, aside from the strong and constant use of the DC milieu and characters.
Anyway, more on that later. On with the blogroll!
Other Games
Non-MMO games.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: The Screenshots
If I were online media, I’d never have been able to bring you these exclusive screenshots from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning that the Big Huge Games division of 38 Studios is busily polishing down in Baltimore. But since it’s just you and me, here, Curt sent these along with a personal message about the hard … Read more
Daily Blogroll 12/14 — Take my game, PLEASE! edition
FFXIV opens with a fantastic character generator, shows you a wonderful cinematic that soon includes you and segues smoothly into the tutorial. You soon are dropped into a crowded inn with quest givers that you will come to know very well. They give out your “guildleves” — kill quests, and your “local leves” — crafting quests, and finally your “field leves” — harvesting quests. Your remaining days in FFXIV will consist of filling up on leves, going to the place they tell you to go, killing trash mobs, making items you won’t be able to keep, and whacking away at harvest nodes.
Once in a very, very long while, you will get to continue the story for a short time — and then it’s back to the leves, hoping for the next bit of the story. Or perhaps to rise high enough in level to see anything but the forest. In a game that almost begs for exploration, it keeps such things as the ferry to other cities, riding chocobos and even travel deep into the forest outside Gridania locked away.
FFXI had its issues — a lot of them — but for the most part, I had fun. Nothing stopped me from exploring (and dodging high level monsters). FFXIV, on the other hand, constantly teases with the fun stuff just over the next horizon. Except over the next horizon are more badgers, bees, animate fungus and so on to slaughter, mindlessly.
If a MMO player had to choose between FFXIV and WoW, I can’t think of anything that would compel them to choose FFXIV. They’d miss questing, an explorable world, any goals, dungeons, etc. They would gain a limited ability to mix and match class abilities to form a custom class of their own choosing, but then, with Rift coming out which goes crazy with customizability (and includes leveling by quests or rift chasing or PvP), it’s not easy by any means to build the case for the game.
Now they’re tossing the game’s director and producer, taking the game back to the workshop for a complete overhaul, and not charging for a subscription until sometime next spring. That puts it just after Rift’s launch, and just before SWTOR’s expected launch in April. I have no idea what they could possibly do to fix the game. It is SO BEAUTIFUL! I guess my only suggestion would be to put some of the fun stuff closer to the start of the game.
On to the blogroll.
Daily Blogroll 11/29, Nostalgia edition
Saturday, I linked to a raid force taking down some old Kunark and Velious mobs. That got me into the game to try and see if I could find any of those same bosses – Cazic Thule, Faydedar, Trakanon and Velketor the Sorceror – up. As far as I know, CT and Faydedar, in their original forms, are no longer in the game. Trakanon had been killed just moments before I got to his lair. Velketor was up, though, and I’ve embedded a video of our meeting at the end.
Hit the break for the latest gossip from around the interwebs!
Daily Blogroll: Black Friday Edition
I’m actually sitting in Star Trek Online right now, hovering above the Deferi Mining Outpost 3, waiting for the Breen capital ship “Desna” to show up. So I can kill it. So, what it is with Black Friday? When did that become some sort of holiday in and of itself? Now we’re apparently exporting it … Read more