DC Universe Online Review

Super hero games are nothing new. Putting them into an MMO is not, either. Just look at the popular Company of Heroes and Company of Villains titles. However, using licensed super heroes in an MMO and putting it on consoles is a new idea. A ballsy one, even. DC Universe Online is venturing into uncharted territory and it largely succeeds.

I will say right away that I have a limited experience with MMOs. And by limited I mean none. Thankfully, DC Universe Online is a fairly friendly game to newcomers. It starts you off in a tutorial outside of the main world after you have selected your character. Here you learn the basic fighting moves and just generally get accustomed to the game.

Overall, fighting is not all that complex in DC Universe Online. Whether you are playing on PC or PS3, the basic fighting move is one button while you have an alternative distance weapon (in my case a batarang). On the PS3 the L2 and R2 buttons allow you to cast your spells when combined with one of the face buttons. All told that leaves eight spaces open, although one of them is taken up for a health item.

However, we are getting too far ahead of ourselves. A big part of playing an MMO is creating a character. DC Universe Online is no different. Unfortunately, I found the choices to be rather limited. You can choose either to be a hero or villain, of which you only have six total choices as your inspiration. Among them are Batman, Superman, The Joker and other famous DC characters. From here you can select different abilities such as flying, acrobats and speed. You also need to select a fighting type, be it brawling, pistol-wielding, sword-swinging, and mind powers, among others.

While it can be interesting to mix the various attributes up, the looks in the game only have cosmetic value. This is definitely a good thing since you can choose to be a tiny kid or an oversized brute. My character was modeled off of Batman and was rather uninspiring, but I found some pretty interesting characters in the world. Many of them were even imitations of Marvel characters that are obviously not a part of this game, such as The Hulk.

Back to gameplay. You will start the game off either on a PvP or PvE server, depending on whether you want to be able to attack human players that are not a member of your team. While there are several options for multi-player action, including some pretty cool attempts at modes that are traditionally in first-person shooters such as Team Deathmatch, the beginning is primarily single-player. You can co-operatively work with other players to take out enemies, but these are story-driven missions. Once you begin to level up you can start to take part in instances where you complete missions with teammates and after reaching 30 you can participate in raids (30 is the level cap, by the way).

Now you are probably wondering about the game world. It takes place in three main locations: Gotham City, Metropolis and the Watchtower. The Watchtower is basically a central hub where you can teleport to different areas of the two cities. However, you cannot go directly from Gotham to Metropolis. Instead, you will have to first travel to the Watchtower. Each city has its own distinct style and missions. Obviously you are not going to find Batman in Metropolis or Superman in Gotham. Likewise, they keep the villains strictly segregated as well.

Once you are in either Metropolis or Gotham City, you are free to explore the entire city without load times. The sense of scale is pretty awesome, especially when you climb one of the many skyscrapers to get a better view of things. You can think of these two cities as several Grand Theft Auto 4s put into one game. The size, while not enormous, is quite respectable. You will rarely play in the exact same area of the city for more than one mission, although you will obviously need to retread old turf to get to new areas.

As far as combat goes, this game is pretty much a brawler. I guess the gameplay will be slightly different depending on what type of character you create, but whether you are shooting a gun or using your fist, the missions are still the same. Usually they involve killing X number of targets, rescuing someone or collecting something. It can get quite monotonous at times. A lot of the missions do not feel much differentiated other than that they are occurring in different areas of the city. Still, the story-driven narrative and boss fights make the drudgery more worthwhile.

When push comes to shove, the asking price for DC Universe Online is pretty steep. $15 a month subscription on top of a $60 game is a lot of money. Fortunately, Sony Online Entertainment has promised new content, including missions, every month. Ultimately it is a judgment call as to whether you can justify the monthly subscription fee. If it was a standalone game with a one-time $60 fee, I would definitely say buy DC Universe Online. It especially proves that MMOs can be successful on consoles. However, $15 a month is a lot of money and unless you plan to marry yourself to this game, it may not be worth the cost of entry. On the bright side, every copy comes with a 30 day free subscription.