DC Universe Online Impressions

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Written by Brother None on January 12th, 2011

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The game is absolutely beautiful. Comic book artist Jim Lee had a large part in bringing the DC world to life in this gaming experience. The characters look amazing, the environments are realistic and stunning, the cinematic portions are incredibly done; in short, the graphics are hands down awesome.

Brainiac's ship serves as a good introduction to the DCUO-style dungeons. It's a series of small encounters of increasing difficulty, with a mini boss fight at the end. It's very straight-forward, and the portion at the end where you fight a series of robots with the help of an AI-controlled Lex Luthor actually requires no input from you. You can stand there and Lex will beat the encounter for you.

The transition to the main world is a little jarring. You step into a teleporter aboard the ship and appear inside a safe-house, where you are shown a few key features. The tutorial misses a couple things that MMO newbies might be unaware of -- most notably, the equipment system. It also barely touches on the skill and ability systems. Luckily, I'll be taking a very in-depth look at both of these soon.

The biggest issue I found in day one was sharing quests with others in my group. My group and I tried numerous ways to share quests so everyone could reap the benefits of experience, but to no avail. My theory is that we were all at low levels and still completing introductory quests, so we won't be able to share quests until later levels. I'll tinker around with it more today to find a solution.

Yeah, the initial customization is pretty dang sweet, allowing you not only pick what your character looks like, but giving you a fair variety of options as far as powers and movement abilities go. Powers range from elemental-based attacks (fire, ice, geomancy, etc.), mystical powers, mental abilities, or the more technology-centric gadget (powers.) Deeper still, you can assign a certain movement ability to get you around, like Flight, Super Speed, or Acrobatics. And still deeper, you can choose a mentor to guide you through the game, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman leading the heroes, as well as their respective villain counterparts Lex Luthor, The Joker and Circe leading you down a more evil path.

You can also opt to have a character automatically created for you with the (Inspired By) option, giving you the opportunity to build a hero or villain after several well-known names in the DC Universe. All six mentors are options, as well as major characters like Mr. Freeze, Bane, Flash, Beast Boy and several others. This is probably recommended for those who wish to jump right into the game without a lot of the character creation hubbub, because one could potentially spend a freakishly long time (perfecting) their character.

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