Following a brief foray into the bizarre world of steampunk vampires in Black Gold, the Team Hammer ground troops fought a fierce battle through the trenches of E3 2013. The event is packed this year, and at times we weren’t certain we’d make it to our next destination for the day. Eventually the white opalescence of the towering SOE booth could be seen off in the distance, beckoning us forward like a siren’s call across the seas of not-so-pleasant smelling event attendees.

While weary from our journey, we were no less determined to see what all the fuss is about with the PlayStation 4, and the show floor demo for DCUO provided the perfect opportunity. Interestingly enough, with all the hype surrounding the new consoles at E3 this year, DCUO is one of only four titles playable on the new Sony console at the event.

DCUO

Check out more images at our DCUO E3 gallery!

For my demo time, I got to play through a brief snippet of some Origin Crisis content; specifically I got to beat up piles of lab workers as Bizarro. He’s actually been one of my favorite DC characters for quite some time, and it also seemed a fitting choice given the whole Man of Steel movie craze that’s sweeping the Nerd Nation.

The Origin Crisis concept is actually an interesting one, as it takes an existing aspect of DCUO – namely Legends PvP – and turns it on its ear. In Legends PvP you get to collect and play as an assortment of DC heroes and villains instead of your normal character, so the Origin Crisis stuff basically allows you to do something similar in a PvE setting for the first time.

DCUO PS4

Normally when given the chance to demo a game either on PC or console, the PC version wins 99.9% of the time. Even if I have gaming roots digging all the way back to the earliest consoles, I’m still heavily biased towards PC as my platform of choice. Doubly so if we’re talking about MMOs. However, for the next, next, next gen of consoles, we’ve been very curious as to whether MMOs will play any better on them.

Of course, DCUO has two legs up on the competition since it already exists as a PS3 title. So in some ways I might not have even noticed that my demo was on the new tech were it not for the omnipresent blue glow of the newest dualshock controller.

The blue glow apparently serves some greater purpose beyond casting a faint reflection in any surface you point it at. As I pounded in the heads of virtual lab assistants, I pondered the choice to go with such a massive blue glow. Is it there to help my fingers better find the triggers? I doubt that’s it, because I honestly think the new triggers are far superior to those on the PS3 controllers.

DCUO Superman PS4

If it were a red glow, you could pretend that your controller were secretly Cylon technology, or that you had personally ganked it from Michael Knight following a drunken arm wrestling match. While Kitt would never be the same, neither would your console gaming. I mean, just imagine the stories you could tell your friends.

The shiny blue glow is also oddly soothing. So perhaps it’s there to help calm me, lest I get too riled up after beating the ever living crap out of wave after wave of lab folks and security guards. In fact, I managed to remain calm, cool, and collected for the duration of my demo time, so perhaps that’s the secret function of the mighty blue glow.

Either way, I would definitely report that DCUO looked and played beautifully on the new tech. As with PlanetSide 2 on the PS4 (more on this coming soon!), the beauty of it is that the graphics will basically play out of the box on super-ultra settings without any loss of framerate or other degradation to the overall experience. And as noted, DCUO has already been optimized to play perfectly well with a controller rather than the hobbled mess we’ve seen with some RPGs on consoles.

Our foray into the Bizarro side of DCUO was only one of our many stops on the magical mystical SOE booth tour, so stay tuned for our updated look at Dragon’s Prophet and an exclusive PlanetSide 2 interview with Matt Higby. You can also follow the complete journey of Team Hammer at E3 over on our handy event page, and don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for plenty of random bits and bursts of info from the event throughout the week.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our DC Universe Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Reuben "Sardu" Waters has been writing professionally about the MMOG industry for eight years, and is the current Editor-in-Chief and Director of Development for Ten Ton Hammer.

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