City of Villains

To say that there is a shortage of games in the MMORPG market would be an incredible understatement. In fact, the market is so packed full, that many recent titles have ended up backing out before a release due to the fact that chance of survival is slim. To be successful in the market, a game needs to be FUN. Of course, proper marketing helps also ;)

NC Soft is not new to MMO’s, and have provided gamers with a great selection for the past few years. Lineage 1 & 2 have had over 5 Million subscribers at a single time, thanks to their hardcore fan base in Korea. Other hit games include Guild Wars and City of Heroes, and they have even more on the way.

Contrary to what some may believe, City of Villains is not a direct sequel to Heroes. In fact, it’s an extension and brings the two together in more ways than you can believe. For those who have not heard or play CoH before; You are basically a superhero out to save the world with your friends. In CoV, it’s the exact opposite. You create your ultimate villain and go have some destructive fun!

Of course, this is not your run-of-the-mill MMORPG, but the base schematics are similar. As with any online RPG game, you first create a new character of your choice and level him/her up to become the ultimate villain you have dreamed to be. Let’s first touch on the character creation though, which is by far one of the most impressive in any MMO game. You first choose between a Brute, Stalker, Mastermind, Dominator or Corruptor. Once you are through with that, you must choose your primary origin such as Science, Magic, Technology and more. Then you must choose your starting powers, and you really can’t go wrong here since you have the ability to increase their effectiveness as you progress.

That’s not the cool part of the creation process though. You must now choose the build of your villain, whether you prefer him to be fat or slim, wimpy or muscular. You have the ability to adjust the size of your legs, arms, head… everything! Get your head out of the gutter! Now you can create a costume for your villain, and this could easily drain an hour or more of your time if you are picky. There are so many combinations, that it’s simply mind boggling. Truth is, simply hitting the ‘random’ button will end up spewing something out to your liking, and that’s exactly what I did. Once I found a character I liked, I just altered the colors to my liking.