The (Second) Five: DC Universe Online

1/10/2009 5:16 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 1

The 10-Cent Tour: DC Universe Online promises to let you play around in the DC Comics universe ... online!

1. It's still early. I mean, really early. Sony Online Entertainment was calling the build shown at CES "pre-alpha," meaning it's nowhere near ready for wide consumption yet. It was playable for the first time, though, and the developers led a demo with two well-animated, player-controlled heroes running around a decently detailed city with a few dozen identical-looking enemies. The developers still wouldn't let themselves be locked into any release timing plans, saying a beta would be ready "when it's ready." Ain't it always the way...

2. You can't be Superman. Or Batman. Or Wonder Woman. Or Green Lantern. Or any character you might actually recognize from the DC universe. Instead, you make your own specially tailored superhero (or villain) that can fight alongside (or against) non-player character versions of the DC superstars. While there's only one Superman, groups of players can always create special instances (called "cases" for Heroes or "capers" for Villains) of scenarios with the big boys. "It doesn't make sense for Superman to show up in three places," the developers said, "but if he's in one place, not enough people might see him."

3. It's not World of Warcraft. Just because DC Universe Online is an MMORPG, that doesn't mean it's got a standard spam-the-spells combat system. Battles are much more action-oriented and responsive to player inputs -- that means no auto-attacking -- and attacks and abilities can be charged up and tweaked depending on the situation. Controls are being tailored for both mouse/keyboard and gamepad players, the latter seeming better suited to the high-flying jumps, air-dashes and wall climbing shown in the demo. Lag concerns put limits on the twitch action, though. "If you see a bus flying down the street and then, suddenly, it warps 100 feet and hits you, you're like 'Man, what happened?'" the developers explained.

4. It could be massively massive. While there were only two player characters running around in the CES demo world, this early build had virtually no lag despite running through a hotel Wi-Fi connection back to a server in California. The developers seemed relatively confident in the scalability of the server system they've set up. "Any limit on the number of characters right now is on the client side, not the server side," they said.

5. Superman can stun Doomsday, pick him up and swing him into other bad guys like a weapon. Just saying...

The Crispy Forecast: Too early to make any real judgments, but it has the potential to be truly Super.

This preview is based on hands-on time with the game at CES 2009. For Evan Narcisse's impressions of a publisher-driven demo of the game at E3 '06, see our First Five.