Divine Intervention

A Tale of Gods and Heroes

March 6, 2007

The gods must be gamers. I can imagine them sitting on their lofty perches, the most radical gaming machine that godly power can summon humming away while they plug hours and hours into their game of choice. However, with the resolutely lackluster batch of MMOs that have been released lately, the gods have had little need for their ultimate hardware. So, rather than wait for another ho-hum title, the deities-at-large have decided to step in and put their powers to the test.

It must have been divine intervention that caused this game to fall from the heavens, and that’s how blessed I feel about the approaching launch of Gods and Heroes. Currently deep in closed beta, the game still has a few months before its late summer launch date, yet many are already heralding the coming of this masterful title. Ten Ton Hammer, along with a host of other major network sites, all bestowed “Best of Show” awards to Gods and Heroes in 2006, making it one of the most anticipated titles in recent memory. Thankfully, my prayers were answered by the observant deities and they granted me the exquisite opportunity to actually sit down with the upcoming title and play through a number of areas in the game.

Sitting in the darkened corner offices of the Perpetual Studios in San Francisco, Calif., Co-Founder and President Chris McKibbin and Design Director Steig Hedlund stood before us and prepared the small group of individuals for their trip to the ancient Roman realm. “It’s all about fun,” McKibbin said. “We want players to enter this world and know that they are the sons and daughters of gods.”

The Gods Know How to Have a Good Time

It’s not every day that you get to be a god…or at least the son or daughter or a god, so from the outset of the game Perpetual wants to insure that you’re aware of this fact. Everything from the initial UI interface in the opening screens to the character creation presentation makes you feel like you’re a part of the Roman world.

As I fired up the Gods and Heroes client and jumped into character creation, I was thankful that the character customization wasn’t neglected. While the customization options available to me were quite good, McKibbin made it an express point to note that they’re still trying to determine just how many sliders options they want to present to gamers.

“There are lots of sliders that we could give to the user in the customization sequence,” McKibbin said, “but we didn’t want to have so many options and overwhelm the user.” From what I saw, the sliders worked very well and the customization options were great, and you can even make a hero that looks like he has a better chance getting accepted into an assisted living home than defeating a monstrous Cyclops. I made one of these old individuals, dressed him in a baby blue and canary yellow toga, and called him Bumbly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to continue playing as Bumbly the gladiator of Jupiter, as McKibbin instructed the group to reload a few prearranged characters so he could show us some of the other elements of the game, the first of which was a thrilling encounter with a higher being.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to continue playing as Bumbly the gladiator of Jupiter, as McKibbin instructed the group to reload a few prearranged characters so he could show us some of the other elements of the game, the first of which was a thrilling encounter with a higher being.