City Of Heroes, City Of Lepers

Alright, so one might say that writing about a Superhero computer game on a blog dedicated to Newell's Old Boys is going way off topic, but bare with me. Yes, Newell's are in pre-Clausura training, and have been playing friendlies against various foreign club, but, having just picked up City Of Heroes/City Of Villians (COH) about a week ago, I have found myself spending far too much time kicking bad guy ass to write about than writing about another scoreless draw that really does not matter in the grand scheme of things. (Yes, there is more to me than just being a futbol/Newell's fanatic.) COH has been around for years, but I only just recently got a computer that was up to the system requirements for the game. (Hooray for refurbished computers!)

Of course, one of the first characters I generated in COH is one that I had created in Hero Games Champions, a pencil and pen Superhero role playing game, is Leproso (humm... wonder where I came up with that name?) The character creation system in COH is quit different from Champions, so more complex characters do not translate as well as simple ones. The Champions version of Leproso was simple enough that he is pretty much the same character type in COH.

It has take me some time to learn some of the basics of the game, but I am getting there. Yes, I am one of those people who do not read the instructions on these games... I learn better by jumping in and making mistakes. One of my first mistakes was not using Enhancements, which have to be assigned to your powers in order to be effective. The second was learning to pick up clues when you find them.  As my highest level character right now is only eighth level (out of a possible fifty) I am sure there is plenty more I will have to learn.

Needless to say, I have been enjoying the game, though I have to agree with my nephew Mike on one thing. It seems that ever turn you make while out in the city streets there is a mugging, if not two or three muggings, in progress. If you are truly playing in the spirit of being a hero you can not just let that go with out helping the victims... and when you are on an assigned mission, well, you make just never get to where you need to get to start the mission for all the random bad guys you will find along the way.

I also find the idea that you can not have a starting character who wears a cape. Capes in COH requires the completion of a special mission which is not available until your character reaches a certain level, which, in my opinion, is ridiculous.

I should also note that it is an online game, so in addition to buying the game you also have to pay a monthly fee which is used to pay for maintaining the servers, and for programmers who continually add content to the game. Servers are located in North America and Europe, but can be assessed from anywhere in the world, or so I understand. Currently all my characters (I have about eight that I have been playing) are on the Champion server. Twelve characters are allowed per server, though more slots can be bought.

Alright, I think I have that all out of my system now. I promise my next post will be about Newell's.