Ever dreamed of flying? We all have. Whether it be jet propulsion boots, wings on your back, or cape in tow, we’ve all dreamed of flying like our favorite super heroes.  And why stop there?  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to lift cars over your head and throw them hundreds of yards? How about shooting beams of raw energy from your eyes, or getting all matrix with some crazy acrobatics while holding a high powered rifle? How about all of the above? Cryptic’s new Super hero MMO, Champions Online offers all of the above and so so very much more.

Now, this isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to superhero MMOs. I played City of Heroes for years (Triumph server represent!),  but lets not confuse the issue here. City of Heroes had an awesome costume creator and I was able to do what I wanted to when it came to looks, but the system for picking your powers was very linear. Once you picked a character archetype, there was no way to deviate from their power sets, so what you’d basically end up with is the same stack of hero archetypes in different costumes. Needless to say the fun of City of Heroes eventually got stale and I turned in my cape thinking I’d never care to pick up an MMO again.

Then Champions online decided to rear its beautiful and malleable head.

For Champions, Cryptic has literally broken the mold of City of Heroes. The difference between your standard mold breakings and the Cryptic style newfangled superhero MMO mold breaking, is that they want you to put the mold back together, and make something new. In Champions Online. I could make a hero with super strength, flight, laser eyes, ice breath, and all the other Kryptonian fixins’, or go for something more original and make a hero that controls minds but also has a gun fetish. Stack the flexibility of making a hero with the powers you want on top of a character creation tool that’s even more extensive and customizable than the ridiculously groundbreaking character creator in City of Heroes, and you’ve got a game that I will play enough to make my girlfriend break up with me!

I’ve been tinkering around in the BETA version, and I’ve built and made more than 10 characters of different types now and I have yet to make one that feels like a reskinned version of a previously made one. This is mostly due to the fact that there are no archetypes in champions, at least not in the conventional sense. You can select from prebuilt powersets when you initially create your character and follow that build all the way to level 40, or you can deviate anywhere along the lines if you decide that your arcane mage needs a shoulder cannon.

This ability to choose is what is going to keep me coming back to this game. To not be tied down by an archtype and instead create a character that has the powers you want them to have in the colors you want them to be makes this game something every comic book nerd should try. If you’ve got a character concept in your mind right now, I’m willing to bet you could make said character 80% accurate, if not greater.  I’ve seen some great character concepts in BETA and can’t wait to see what people come up with when the game hits stores on September 1st.

I would say that the biggest draw for me is actually that I can purchase a lifetime membership to Champions. that way i won’t have to worry about a monthly fee. Cryptic is only doing this for a limited time, but if you Click Here you can purchase a 6 month or lifetime membership. Both come with some other free perks as well.

If you want to taste test before taking the dive into an eternal relationship with Champions online, you can always just preorder the game to get some cool perks and try it out for a month.

I will be doing both.

Hope to see you all there! Thanks for reading!

You can also preorder Champions Online on Amazon by clicking the link.  And be sure to check out the trailer below!

Editor’s Note: Sk8tron will be back with regular updates about Champions Online from the BETA test and will be covering some more video game and nerd news for us here.