As expected, there are numerous similarities between City of Heroes and City
of Villains — in many instances this is a good thing, but in some ways
the game is disappointing. To their credit, though, Cryptic did a marvelous
job utilizing the same tools to create a different effect.
For example, most of the graphics and animations in CoV are the same as the
graphics and animations in CoH. But with the clever usage of lighting, placement,
and a few new additions, the Rogue Isles are militaristic instead of pristine.
Skills, at first glance, are a major disappointment; there are very few new
powersets, and most of the new ones belong to the Masterminds. Once I started
to play, though, I realized how different the CoV Archetypes are from their
CoH counterparts; the mix of powersets creates truly different characters
that require an entirely different game play style. Corrupters don’t
play like Blasters, but they also don’t play like Controllers; even
Stalkers are a far cry from their Scrapper brethren.
Unfortunately, there is still a lot of balance work to be done with the CoV
classes. Some archetypes are just way more powerful than another. For example,
a Mastermind with six robots or ninjas can clear an entire mission on the
highest difficulty setting, relentless, while a Corrupter might have a hard
time on the easiest setting, villainous.
ReviewsFri, Dec 05, 2008Dalmarus
