DC Universe Online (Part One)

Lately, I've been busy downloading and trying out a freemium game called "DC Universe Online". The full size of this game client is roughly 20 GB and honestly it took me a darn long time to completely download the game and start trying it.

Basically, the game is free to play but does offer you a chance to upgrade to premium and legendary account status. To achieve premium status, all you need to do is to spend more than 5 USD on the game via its cash item shop. If you wish to get legendary status, you will then need to subscribe to the game and pay a monthly fee of 14.99 USD. And if you wish to end your subscription of the game, your account status will merely just convert back to "Premium" upon the end of the subscription period. For more information about the limits and differences of each of the account status, please refer to DC Universe Online - Free to Play.

The general concept behind this game is that the players who were just regular humans are now bestowed with superpowers (thanks to the future world's Lex Luthor & "Exobytes") to help the super heroes and villains (well-known characters from DC Comics) fight against Brainiac's impending invasion.

Well...at least that's the storyline part of the game. But from what I've gathered while playing, apart from its storyline, DC Universe Online also provides a platform for people to fight against each other (Heroes versus Villains) towards the end-game.

In my opinion, the features of this game would essentially be its hack-n-slash combat, its solo/group instances (alerts and raids), its PVP system (leagues/team matches), its customizability of your hero/villain avatar and its storyline quests.

Character Creation & Customizability
Although I did mention the customizability of your hero/villain avatar as one of its features, DCUO's character creation system still pales in comparison to Phantasy Star Online 2's. But nonetheless, DCUO does have an interesting part to customization of the player's avatar that's unique in itself.

During character creation, the player needs to go through a step-by-step process to slowly mold his/her ideal super hero or villain. Apart from selecting the gender and size of your avatar, you will also need to pick out various other crucial and non-crucial aspects like personality, mentor and powers (some of which will determine the skills you will get and roles you will play in battles while others are merely cosmetic).

The above picture shows how my avatar turned out towards the end of character creation. So how is it? Does it look superheroish?

The next thing I like about DCUO's character customization is that at any point in time, I can simply access the style option to mix and match particular clothing and weapon styles that I fancy. And the best part about this is that I do not need to have a "particular" piece of clothing or weapon constantly equipped in order to maintain the style that I desire.

So long as I have equipped the item at least once, the style of that item will be added to my avatar's collection. And if I wish to permanently maintain that style, all I need to do is to click on the lock icon (found beside its category) and it will not change regardless of which other equipment I have chosen to use in its place. For example, I can choose to lock all the categories except for my primary weapon. Then, in this case, only the style of the weapon that my avatar holds during combat will change (whenever my avatar changes to a new weapon).

In this above picture, you can see that I've looted myself a new pair of boots. And when I hover my mouse over the item to look at its information window, I can see a certain line of info - "Style: Jah Kir (Not collected)" apart from the regular item stats and changes to stats when equipped.

This is actually what I'm referring to when I mentioned "style" earlier. For each equippable item found in DC Universe Online has a preset style attached to it. And when you equip the item, its style will then be added to your collection (under its corresponding category) and the next time you come across an item with the same style and category, that line of info will then change to "Already Collected". And as long as you've collected that particular style, it will be made available for you in the style options.

Next: DCUO (Part Two)

Posted in: DC Universe Online