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City of HeroesReviewed by Grace Bautista
Almost everyone has pretended to be some sort of superhero in their lifetime. Admit that you have tied a blanket around your neck and jumped throughout your home at least once in your childhood. Now you can relive your glory days! With the help of the PC MMORPG known as City of Heroes, you can turn yourself into a tights wearing, spandex bearing, masked caped crusader that you've always wanted to be. In City of Heroes (COH), you are a basically one of many super heroes who keep Paragon City safe. COH contains all the elements of a typical MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Gameplay is smooth and fast. COH is played like a standard PC game – with a keyboard and mouse. The game is certainly easy to learn and is straight forward, which provides even the novice gamer an enjoyable experience from the get go. COH is a quick paced action game, so watch out fantasy MMORPG players … you won't be able to take a nap during THIS game. Gameplay is enhanced with the capability to create and join a Supergroup. Yes, kinda like having your own Super Friends minus a Hall of Justice. This is beneficial for heroes who want to communicate and team with certain heroes often. The graphics are done well, and they do not skimp on the details of the environment. With the constant movement of objects, be it garbage blowing through a seedy part of town, the blasts and action a battle, to a hero's cape moving in the wind, all parts of the environment can be in motion. Couple this with the variety of sounds and music that can be heard, Paragon City is filled with the sights and sounds of activity. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game is creating your hero. The character generator in COH is impressive. It is highly detailed and contains a great many options. The details of your character can be manipulated resulting in very unique heroes. Roaming around Paragon City, you will find it hard to run across duplicate looking heroes. Even picking the KIND of hero is fun. Like to kick butt the old fashioned style by way of fist? Like to use bladed weapons? Like guns and explosives? Maybe you desire to shoot laser beams from your eyes or conjure fire balls from your hands. Or perhaps you want to sit back while your pets do the dirty work for you. All this and more is available depending on what archetype you choose for your hero. But how did you get your powers? The hero character origins vary from Magic, Technology, Mutant, and Science. Again, this touches on the broad base of genres that stories are developed from. COH is a very unique and entirely fun game that is recommended for those wanting to try a MMORPG for the first time or for those tired of the typical elf, knight, and orc type MMORPG. And those who are comic book lovers or have a little bit of a superhero complex deep inside, this game is mandatory! Up, up and away!
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Developer: Cryptic Studios 
Game). You can defeat baddies as a single hero, or team up with others to put away mobs of bad guys. There are also missions to do, badges to be earned, and task forces and trials to be completed. In between, you can hunt for the evil doers at your leisure. All the while, you gain experience points that help your hero attain higher levels – progressively gaining new powers and skills. 
The greatest advantage that City of Heroes has above the other MMORPGs is their genre. Most of the popular MMORPGs are fantasy based. COH provides a breath of fresh air by bringing an ever expanding modern type world to the MMORPG table. The comic book based game provides an excellent backbone for story arcs. They can continue to expand without having to worry about staying within a certain genre boundary. Like a comic book, they can introduce new elements in their stories, new arch villains, and even whole new worlds with every new issue. There are thugs and gangs, mutated baddies, magic mages, evil techno freaks, giant monsters, military like evil doers, ghosts, ninjas, and even alien invaders … the list goes on. In the words of a popular hero, "The world always seems to be in peril, doesn't it?" 
COH provides value to the game due to the fact that their expansion packs are free! New expansions are called "Issues". The highly anticipated Issue 4 is due out later this year. With this upcoming issue, a whole new level of gameplay will begin. Heroes can hone their skills by going to arenas in certain cities where player versus player, team versus team, and Supergroup versus Supergroup challenges will take place. 
