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Take a fun walk on the dark side of the City.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After a very successful launch, numerous awards, and legions of players, NC Soft is letting gamers deviate from their heroic ways in City of Heroes to take a walk on the other side. In City of Villains, players can now become the ultimate bad guy as you fight not only legions of A.I Opponents, but up against flesh and blood heroes as well. The game is setup as a stand alone product though players who own City of Heroes will be able to access certain new areas and will enjoy only one membership fee to play both games.

After setting up an account, players are given the ability to create and customize their villain from a very impressive selection of classes and abilities. I was very impressed at the amount of details that I could put into my character, as I was easily able to craft a look that was unique. After settling on the right class, look and name for my Villain, I set off to make a name for myself through mayhem, destruction, deceit and all of the anti-virtues I had been fighting to prevent in my City of Heroes persona.

The gameplay options of the game are amazing as the opening training tutorial was very easy to use and understand and the scope of the game even in this early first stage was amazing. Once my villain made it through training and escaped the prison he was contained in, he was able to explore the highly detailed city. Unlike the massive high rises of Paragon City from the first game, players much work their way up the ranks by various missions in the foreboding Rogue Isles, where bad guys are in abundance and plot their various schemes. Players travel to various zones by ferry and flying craft, as the urban monorails of COH are no place for scum like us. Players take on various tasks to gain experience ranging from robberies, busting up rival gangs, and infiltrating lairs to name but a few. The variety of enemies is vast as they range from thugs, super villains, and all manner of creatures in the sewers. As players gather experience, they will be able to gain new abilities, which will allow them to take on greater tasks.

The many players I encountered were very helpful and on more than one occasion a passing player assisted me in combat or helped heal me. It is nice to know that even when we are playing as villains, players still take the time to be helpful and avoid the everyone for themselves mentality. The vast map is easily navigated by a pop up mask that allows players to travel to hotspots or places of interest. Missions are assigned by reading articles of interest in the paper as well as by NPC characters. Combat is easily handled by a user interface that shows what skills are available and which are recharging. The ability to trade enhancements is also a nice addition increasing the community aspect of the game. The controls of the game are easily learned and the enemy A.I. starts out simple but increases as the game goes on much like the original. The in game combat has been greatly enhanced by the inclusion of rag doll physics where knock backs and knock downs unfurl in a far more realistic and detailed manner than before. Players will also get the ability to build their own base and equip it with all manner of defenses. This is a nice touch as assault on or defense of a base is a very nice and much needed feature. The inclusion of Player VS Player combat out of the box is good as aside from the arenas; there are also strategic locales where players battle with and against real and computer controlled opponents.

The graphics of the game are solid showing the incredible potential of the game engine. I was able to have high detail levels that included moving grass and water drops as well as dynamic effects. The game engine is able to render detailed objects far in the distance and gives an amazing sense of scale, as the terrain and layout of the island are very detailed. The lighting effects in combat as well as the inclusion of cut scenes were also a nice touch and ads to the immersion in the game for players.
The audio portion of the game is very strong as the music changes according to zones and gameplay conditions as do the sound effects in game. On my Creative Labs X-FI card, the surround sound effects were crisp and allowed me to hear of dangers all around me, as each sound was portrayed in the range appropriate to the locale of my character.
While some of the concerns about COH remain such as XP Debt, grinding out mission after mission to level, and mission repetition, what is abundantly clear is that the designers have setout to address the issues such as no XP debt until level 10, and the numerous free updates. I am very excited to see what the future holds for the games, as the sky is the limit for the potential of COV as it I is a solid game with outstanding gameplay experiences that
will delight fans of comics and Massive Multiplay Games. Great Job guys this one not only lived up to expectations it leapt over them in a single bound.

5 stars out of 5
Gareth Von Kallenbach
[...]

Know what you are getting

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 20
Date: November 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I purchased both the deluxe (which I also reviewed) and the regular version of this game. I've spent hours now with friends from City of Heroes exploring it. My husband is enjoying some of it, as are a few of our friends, but I feel more and more that I wasted money. This game is very much a matter of taste. Parents with younger teens especially should know what they are buying their children if they purchase this game. I know many people will think "Oh, come on, it's only a game", but games reflect and affect how we think. Games have been used for centuries to teach, not just skills, but behaviors and attitudes. NO, I don't think kids will run out and start robbing banks because of a video game. I do think they will develop an idea that stealing (or other anti-social behaviors) might be fun.

First, I must say the game does play about as well as the original, especially now that patches are in place. Many graphical improvements appeared for both games. Other improvements are CoV only, such as additional options in costume design. I did have fun designing evil looking characters and running around the lower levels fighting new enemies. New character options, new archtypes, a visually interesting world -- that's all present. There is a lot to tempt someone from City of Heroes into getting the game and the combined account, especially with the two-for-one price structure.

The game offers player vs the computer and player vs player. If you want to stick to just robbing banks, kidnapping people, killing other bad guys and such, your areas of operation are somewhat limited. If you want to actively hunt and kill other players, you can go into the PvP areas.

My major objections are completely personal for me and others may not have the same feeling. I can't get behind the ideas in the game. City of Heroes was a positive experience, something to feel good about. City of Villians, in keeping with its "dark side" ideas, promotes all the nastiness a human can produce. AFter playing for a while, I found I was angry, vengeful, and thinking about how I could hunt down so-n-so (other players) and pound his face into the ground. After about two week of playing, my enthusiasm wore off completely and turned to distaste as I thought about what kinds of activities I was emulating. Did I really want to spend my time and energy this way? At least in the hero world, I could feel I'd accomplished something, however imaginary, and I'd had fun with my friends online. In CoV, turning on your "friends" is part of the game. There is even one zone where heroes are pitted against heroes to gain objects of destructive power. I deleted all my villainous characters and decided I would not play anymore.

There were other options with CoV that came into CoH I was still looking forward to, and that was mostly concerning the development of super bases. If you've played other MMORGS, you probably grasp the idea of game economy and the value of making things and having your own "place" in the game world. Well, after 3 weeks of experimentation with this, all I can say is...very poor job. The rules and costs for creation take the whole thing beyond challenging and difficult to "why do you even want to bother with this?" Again, it all hinges on the PvP aspect. If you don't want to raid other players, there's not a lot of point in a base. If you do, there is prohibitive cost involved and your supergroup will need to be successful, constant raiders. But don't worry, it will be at least 6 months before you can even consider it, because you can't make and buy everything you need for a while yet. The developers will need either to make major changes or simply state that they never intended very many people to manage having a base.

I have many friends who were looking to put CoV under their Christmas trees, and I'm now advising them to think it over carefully. If you like player vs player action and all that it entails, then, yes, City of Villains is just what you want. If you aren't sure or don't think so, then save your money.

Great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Love the game for a casual gamer its addicting and very customizable suggest it over wow check it out ^_^

It didn't WoW me

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: January 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was looking to take a break from world of warcraft and decided to give city villains a try... 2 weeks later I reactivated my warcraft account. I found the CoV gameplay to be extremely repetitive and chaotic. I also found the amount of supergroup/team spammed invites without so much as a 'hey' in-game tell to be infinitely bothersome. Maybe under different circumstances I could have enjoyed it - but it just didn't match up to world of warcraft... If I need to repetitevely kill the same things over and over and over again, I'd like to at least do it in a game where I can always move to a different setting and refresh the experience.

The other side of the coin

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing City of Heroes almost since it came out, and have enjoyed it immensely. I was intrigued by CoV when it came out, but resisted, until I received it as a gift. Although I still think CoH is the better of the two, sometimes it is fun to be the bad guy! The character creation in City of Villains is fun - lots of great evil faces and so on to choose from, and although the power types are not that different than CoH, the way they are combined and played gives a very different feel. All in all, quite a bit of fun and since the monthly cost is included with my CoH subscription, well worth $20 to get the software!

One year later & the game is going strong!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a really fun game if you want to play mmorpg without all the mid-evil stuff... lets face it every mmorpg game out there is stuck in the past!

This game is easy to play & understand. Its one of the few online mmorpg games set in modern times, & allows FULL costumization of your character.

People complaining about the time it takes to make a character are missing half the fun of the game, you'll find dressing your "toon" one of the highlights of the game. As you progress in the game you gain more costume options

Capes
Auras
extras costume slots (you can currently have 5 differnt looks)
Wings (after 15 months of paid/played game time)
etc....

lots of new content added every 6 months or so.

this is a game worth trying if you are still thinking about do so :)

I highly recomend it!

It can be good to be bad

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

"City of Heroes" is a good, fun online expierience... and "City of Villains", when combined with "CoH" tops that level of fun off. I have both so this review is only really relevent if you have both games as they play really well off of each other.
Let me start with the basics: character design. It is the same as CoH, yet there are more sinister costume pieces and as you progress further in level you uncover more interesting pieces like a larger variety of capes and such. Of course, with the new Veterans rewards comming out... capes will probably be replaced by the most anticipated wings. Still, the costume design is arguably my favorite feature of the game.
The hunting and missions are all rather decent although they are pretty much of the same vein as CoH... but the new Mayhem missions have a bit of excitement to them because you can destroy the surroundings to "alter" the area. You kidnap people... which actually equates to rescuing them but a small technicality like that equates to nothing big at all. The team ups can be pretty rewarding. Another fun aspect is that when a victim is destroyed, they fall like a real person would... as in dead weight.
The bad aspects of the game... the biggest being issues with lagging game play. If you spend too much time on, the game tends to get a little choppy and freezes. Also, the server for CoV tends to loose connection allot so that contributes to some frusteration.
Still, little things like that don't really detract all that much from the appeal of being a badder than bad guy. It is fun, creative, and sometimes... a little too adictive.

Nice but....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

City of Villians is a fun game. You get to be a villian and fight heroes in a vst big land. There's lots of quests and a tutrial to help you. The only downside is u need to pay each month or 3,etc depending how much u payed. If u get a copy, u might get one month free but u have to activate it first.

It takes awhile to see... but a poorly executed expansion.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: January 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well, it has been out for awhile and I have played through it a bit and suffice to say... this game is dead. It should have been a new entity alongside City of Heroes but for all it's flash it is just more of the same. The missions are EXACTLY the same as the hero side of the game...sometimes with just minor word changes.

You play through the game and contacts tell you what a big shot you are becoming.. then in the late 30 levels all your contacts act like you are a nobody. That sort of inconistant story telling and pacing are just small complaints.

Big complaint, lack of anything to do but the same tired four or five mission templates. That is right, there is a small handful of missions... and you will be doing them over and over and over and over. Soloing is boring and group play is risky thanks to no solid group dynamic.

PVP? PvP is a joke. A few powers destroy everything else making it zero fun. If you enter a PvP zone and have no resistance to status effect (ie holds, sleeps, etc) you are pretty much a doomed. They say upper level content is coming but they never even came up with decent upper level content for City of Heroes (the general response was "make a new character", and that means the same grind all over)... so save your money, this MMO is starting it's descent (again).

On the positive side, it does have one of the most fun combat systems for an MMO and an impressive character design system. These were positives from City of Heroes... so it is not like they would downgrade that.

Very Very Fun!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: March 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing COH and COV for couple of months now.
Both games are very fun. I have a lvl50 Controller,lvl50 Defender,and numerous other characters. Leveling is fun and easy,just get on great teams,that have difficulty set so u
achive maximum xp for characters. When you reach lvl50 in COH,you have
the choice to unlock 2 new characters. These characters are
enegry aliens,one called PeaceBringer and the other Warshade.
I have both characters. Yes the games is repetive,but when you
team up with great people,you have alot of fun. Get this game!

I have a Master Mind toon,in COV and i have 4 bots i can controll. Upon lvl26 i get a large Assault bot. I controll my
bots,telling them to attack targets,stay at a certain position or follow me. Each bot can be told to do different things. My character is a force field controller,so i manipulate force energies to achieve enemy defeat.

As a Force Field Villian,i can place defensive force fields around each of my bots. In addition,2 of my bots called Protectors,can place forcefields around me and also the bots. To top it all off,i can place a doom shield around my entire group. These shields limit enemy damage,often times low level enemies cannot even touch me,with the shield up. I also can upgrade each bot with unique weapontry to that bot. The upgrade is unique and is the weapon each bot recieves is controlled by the game.

When playing COH or COV,u can go on solo-missions,or hunt in the various cities or zones,or team-up and play as a group with others. As you defeat Hereos or villians,you recieve infamy or influence,that u can use to purchase enchancements for your toon. Your gonna have a great time. See ya in the cities.

UPDATE:(05-08-06) Total of 6 bots to control. 2 Protector bots;they heal other bots and gives me and all bots a forcefield bubble that enhances our defense,and also make seeker drones. 3 Battle bots they have ranged and melee powers. 1 Assault bot,this bot is awesome. It has missles,lazers and melee attacks.

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