DC Universe Online (DCUO) is the latest MMO in Sony Online Entertainment’s stable.  For those who don’t know, DCUO is a super hero/ super villain game set in the DC Comics universe.  Players can interact with many of the popular heroes and villains such as Superman, Batman, Lex Luthor, and the Joker.  The game has been released for both Windows and PS3, although both platforms cannot play on the same servers.

During character creations players have three main choices to make that affect their gameplay; power set, travel mode, and weapon proficiency.  There are a myriad of cosmetic and aesthetic choices too, but they do not affect actual gameplay.

The first is what power set they wish to use, current options are fire, ice, mental, gadgets, nature, and sorcery.  Every power set can be used as a damage role (or DPS) but also has a secondary role; fire and ice are tanks, mental and gadgets are controllers, and nature and sorcery are healers.  There are two trees for each power set giving a wide array of options.

Choice of travel mode does not sound important, but it makes a big difference in DCUO.  The three options are flight, acrobatics, and super speed.  Each option has its own way of allowing your character to move around the world.  Flight is self-explanatory, acrobatics allows you to run in leaping bounds and climb up the side of buildings, and super speed lets you run really fast and up walls.  Not only do travel forms dictate how you move around, they each have special powers and combos you can learn.

Weapon proficiency is an important part of the DCUO combat system.  Right now there are 11 options; bows, brawling, dual pistols, dual melee weapons, hand blasts, martial arts, one-handed melee weapons,  rifles, staves, and two-handed melee weapons.  Each weapon type has specific characteristics (speed, damage, etc.) as well as special moves and combos to learn.  The combos will be familiar to anyone who has played games like Dynasty Warriors.

The opening Cinematic feels epic and awesome, it really gets you in the mood to save the earth and sets up the story pretty well.  After you defeat instances and bosses the game goes into a very comic book style cut scene which may not look visually stunning, but it really fits the comic book feel of the game.  The story lines I have played through have been engaging and entertaining.  The fact that you get to play with these famous super heroes helps set this game apart from other super hero MMOs (City of Heroes, Champions Online).

The UI is a bit clunky on the PC; I do not know how it is on the PS3.  You will find that you almost never use your mouse except for menus and panning the camera around.  All of your actions are done through hot keys as is most of your movement.  The chat system is abysmal and is almost useless; SOE has stated a plan to improve it in the next patch.  The voice chat system leaves a lot to be desired. I ran one instance with some kid leaving his microphone on which echoed the in game sounds so badly that I just disabled this option completely.

The game also supports the use of an Xbox 360 controller for the PC.  I tried this out and was pleasantly surprised.  I should not have been, the controls even for the PC are very simple and lend themselves perfectly to a controller.  A lot of the more complicated moves you learn are performed through combos, which are a little weird to get used to while using a keyboard and mouse; this is where the controller really shines through.

The game was designed on top of the Unreal 3 engine, which may be aging, but it’s still got some life left in it.  The graphics are not visually stunning, but their style helps make you feel like you are in a comic book, which is a great feeling.  While they are not stunning, they are adequate and fairly good for an MMO.  The voice acting is inconsistent.  Some of the characters sound amazing (Booster Gold is quite entertaining) but some sound absolutely horrible (Superman is one of the worst in the game).

Overall, the game feels like it is barely out of Beta with its quirks and foibles.  On the other hand, I have been enjoying the game a lot.  I need to force myself to not just sit down and make characters for hours on end, it’s too fun!  The weapon/travel/power set combinations are so varied that I feel like I have to try them all out some day.  I have not gotten to endgame content so I cannot comment on that, but for now, it’s my game of choice.  It’s Geektime gives DC Universe Online a 7 on the d10 of MMOs.