City of Heroes Preview
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Paragon City, the fictional metropolis in which the game is based, has seen better days. An alien invasion obliterated the superhero population, and those same aliens had erected massive walls between each city section before they were ultimately defeated. What's left is a city divided into both re-civilized and hostile zones, a dangerous hotbed of crime that's eager for a new generation of heroes (that's you!) to take over.
If laid out in real life, Paragon City would be around 16 square miles big. For comparison, the island of Manhattan in 22 square miles. That's a lot to explore! The city is rendered in crisp detail, complete with pedestrians on the sidewalk, cars that drive around, a monorail system, parks, warehouses, and more. The beginning zones are peaceful and relatively safe bastions of normal urban life. As your hero gains a few levels and gets clearance for the other neighborhoods, it isn't so pretty: parts of the city are still ruined wrecks haunted by gangs of thugs and supervillains. Others are a complete hazard: our favorite was the "Faultline" district, a part of the city completely destroyed by an earthquake-causing villain. There, hulks of buildings loomed overhead at 45-degree angles and the ground was terraced into massive ruin-topped plateaus of dirt and shattered cement.
