City of Villains

City of Villains is essentially a stand-alone expansion to City of Heroes. It can be purchased and played separately from City of Heroes, but existing CoH players can buy the CoV box and play a villain without paying a second subscription fee - a move that was lauded by CoH players everywhere. With the onset of City of Villains, a host of new features was added to the game, so let's take a look and see if its all worthwhile, shall we?

The game takes place on the Rogue Isles, which is an island range in the Caribbean, ruled by Lord Recluse of Arachnos. Make no mistake - he's the one in charge. Instead of your idyllic paradise of Paragon City, which has a few rogue elements running around, the Rogue Isles is a true dictatorship. In the opening area of Mercy Island, you see the thriving Mercy City, which is walled in and patrolled by Arachnos troops, while the rest of the island lives in squalor. There is a noticeable dichotomy between that which is controlled by Arachnos and that which is...not. Of all of the zones I've seen, each of the NPCs are all very opportunistic, which is EXACTLY the environment where a villain thrives.

With the game come five new archetypes. Your villains are not heroes; therefore they don't have the same powersets as the Heroes do. The game is released with five archetypes - Brutes, which are reverse Tankers (Damage primary, Defense secondary), Stalkers, which are Scrappers that can hide to perform devastating assassination strikes, Dominators, who resemble Controllers, without the Healing/Support secondary (replaced with Assault, to give more damage dealing power), Corruptors, which are your Blaster types, with the Healing/Buff secondary, and Masterminds, who summon minions to do the dirty work, while they hang back and support the whole team from a distance. Many of the powersets are similar or identical to their counterparts in CoH, but the game does offer a few entirely new sets. All of the Mastermind powersets are new-ish hybrid sets, with Summons interspersed in some of the Blaster sets. The game also offers Plant Control, Plant Assault, and Poison (Buff) sets, which are entirely new to both games as a whole. All in all, I like the new classes, but the problem is there's no real healer class - Two classes get healing powers, and both of them are secondary powersets! In a big group or PvP situation, healing is essential, and the Villains lack the ability to bounce back from a hairy situation.

At first glance, the game looks the same. Really. Exactly the same. But to the trained eye of your friendly neighborhood game reviewer, there are subtle graphic changes that are welcome to every level of gamer. Most notable of the graphic changes is the ability to scale your 3D resolution. This is critical for mid-range rigs that don't have the uber graphics cards that can render 75fps at 1600x1200 resolution. The 3D scaling slider allows a less powerful card to render the higher resolutions. There is a noticeable blurring effect when you play with the slider, but that's the price you pay for bumping up from 800x600 to 1280x1024.

The additions of Bloom effects and higher samples of anti-aliasing are noticeable as well, making the world a nicer place to raise a little hell. Also, the addition of rag-doll physics to the engine makes the game a bit more true to life.
When you begin your campaign for world domination, you start...in prison. Heh. As a failed criminal locked up for your crimes against humanity, the Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx have deemed you not fit for society, and have locked you in the Ziggurat. Lord Recluse sees potential in your ambition, and has an elite squad of Wolf Spiders dispatched to spring you from the joint. Your fellow inmates usher you through your tutorial, and you are whisked off to Mercy Island to begin working off your debt to Lord Recluse and begin your reign of terror.
The gameplay is very similar to City of Heroes, with the system of Street and Door missions to advance the story arcs, with one new addition - the paper. While it's nice being a mercenary doing missions for other criminals, you ARE in business for yourself. The Paper is a contact that will always have a few missions for you to select that are general heists, which means you never have to go run to a contact when you've finished your latest caper. Once you complete a few of your own jobs, the local Broker will have something meaty for you to sink your teeth into, usually ripe with Infamy (the CoV version of currency) for the taking. The broker also will have new Contacts for you, to advance your criminal career.

Another important aspect to mention is the re-emphasis on Supergroups. The Supergroup, originated in CoH, was a way for players to ban together to quickly find teams, but ultimately had no purpose. Other than a quick costume change, there wasn't any point to being in a SG. With CoV, the Supergroup system received an overhaul. In addition to the SG receiving a new costume scheme, each SG can create a Base, where members can hang out, plan schemes, and...steal stuff from other SGs. Once the SG has garnered enough Prestige points, they can expand their base and add things like workshops, where various bits of salvage can be turned into items, resurrection points, so a member can rez at the base instead of a hospital, or monuments that grant the entire SG some pretty serious buffs! The problem is these monuments can be stolen if your base's defenses aren't up to snuff, and any SG can attempt a raid on your base! So, the SG's leadership needs to plan out the base carefully, so you can keep all of your nifty toys.

Another aspect that received some love is the inter-game PvP. During the game's beta, we were treated to a few events where Heroes of Paragon City went toe to toe with the Villains of the Rogue Isles in some hairy PvP maps. There were about 50 heroes and villains on each side, vying for control points, which were battled over by some NPCs. The object was to clear the other side's NPCs at each point, while fending off the other side's players. Also, higher level players who own both games can venture into zones from the other game...if they can avoid being ganked. Right now, the Villain level cap is set to 40, while Heroes can hit 50. More than likely, the Villain cap will rise after a few content patches.


As for the rest of the gameplay? Well, if you've played City of Heroes, then you know exactly how it plays. Each character has a HUGE number of wardrobe choices, but once you choose your costume, that's it. There's very little in the way of loot or weapons or any of that nonsense, so there's no squabbling over rolls or ninjas or any of that nonsense. Your powers are your powers, Enhancements and money fall like rain, and it's all very civilized...for a rampant, power-hungry culture bent on world destruction....
The last and possibly best feature to all of this is that everything I just mentioned as new additions to City of Villains - the SG upgrades, the bases, the new graphics engine updates, all of it - each of these things is available to City of Heroes players now. So if you've ever wondered what its like to be on the wrong side of the law, with super powers bristling from your fingertips and an appetite for destruction, give City of Villains a try. You may just find your inner demons like to play games, too.