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DC Universe Online Updated Hands-On

By Luke Anderson, GameSpot UKPosted Aug 20, 2009 5:58 pm PT

We join the forces of evil alongside The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Bizarro in DC Universe Online and lend a hand to a sinister plot Lex Luthor is unleashing on Metropolis.

The greatest heroes and villains of DC Universe are gearing up for an epic battle, and this massively multiplayer online game will let you create your own superhero/villain to bring into the fray. We got another hands-on session with this hotly anticipated game at GamesCom 2009 in Cologne, Germany.

What's New: We played as a brand-new create-your-own character called Volcanic, a villain garbed in a red and green costume. Volcanic, a level-25 character, has a number of cool elemental powers at his disposal, including a focused fireball, an omni-directional fireball, stun, and a firey uppercut melee attack. In addition, Volcanic can levitate and has an additional energy beam attack.

What's The Same: We played the same quest that was on show at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this June. If you want to find out about this mission from a hero's perspective, read our E3 preview.

What's Different: This time around we played the demo as a villain and had some powerful accomplices in the form of several non-playable characters, including The Joker, Harley Quinn, Bizarro, Solomon Grundy, and Lex Luthor.

In the mission, a virus outbreak has occurred at Luthor's S.T.A.R. (Scientific and Technical Advanced Research) Labs. While DC heroes aim to contain the outbreak and find a cure, Luthor wants to use the virus for his own purposes, and as part of his team, you can infect innocent S.T.A.R. staff to turn them into mind-controlled mutants and use them to attack aggressive mutants not yet under your control. We had to fight a number of low-level S.T.A.R. officers directly, and we soon encountered an oversized, heavily armoured S.T.A.R. captain, who proved to be more challenging. Thankfully he was no match for our superpowers, however, and in addition to these we also used weaponised items--in this case an explosive barrel--to damage him.

We encountered the same miniboss as before: a huge, hulking mutant that was the source of the outbreak. When we arrived on the scene, Bizarro and Solomon Grundy were already dishing out damage at the mutant, and with our help he was reduced to a grotesque mass of mutant flesh. We picked him up and proceeded to take him to a containment unit, presumably so Luthor could weaponise and reproduce it. Unfortunately Green Lantern was waiting to stop us from doing this, but with Luthor and Volcanic's powers combined, evil ultimately prevailed on the day.

What Impression The Game Made This Time: DC Universe Online looks and feels like a living comic book, featuring plenty of classic characters, the ability to create your own hero or villain from scratch, and a rewarding combat system. The massively multiplayer online game is heading to the PlayStation 3 and PC with a release date yet to be confirmed.

56 Comments

  • NeoStar9

    Posted Nov 29, 2009 12:08 pm PT

    I wonder how this is going to work from a story point of view. City of Heroes and Villains worked because they had separate storylines. Even if the missions were similar the locations and characters were different. How from a story point of view is this DCUO setup going to work if both sides are attacking the same Star Lab but looking to do different things?

  • Thomasskins

    Posted Nov 25, 2009 3:02 pm PT

    Like city of villians on the PS3 im gettng it, play.com here i come...

  • Joures

    Posted Nov 3, 2009 8:04 am PT

    i have to agree with yooomannn.....i mean seriously how can you think you could control a major character in an MMO? so you are the imba man and the other players are losers who make second-grade heroes and have to bust their asses to become somewhat good? same goes for other MMOs....it wouldnt be fair to control a major character in one....only in single-player games and perhaps and 2-player and 4 player ones but not in MMOs....
    now on topic.
    i am expecting this game to see how good it is and if there is a monthly fee (preferably a gamecard way of paying) thats not too pricey i might consider paying to play the game. hopefully it aint as pricey as for WoW :p

  • yoooomannnn

    Posted Oct 28, 2009 8:45 am PT

    @cpinheiro2: Name one MMO that allows you to play AS a major character. I'll wait. As a genre, they're all about making your own character. What MMOs have you played?

    Here are the franchise MMOs that _don't_ allow you to play as the major characters: WoW, LotRO, AoC, WAR, and the unreleased STO, SWTOR... there are probably more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Those games, whose developers have also apparently read the "Grand MMO How-To-Suck Gameplay Manual," all seem pretty fun to me.

  • cpinheiro2

    Posted Oct 28, 2009 6:36 am PT

    @yoooomannnn: Alright! It looks like someone have read the Grand MMO How-To-Suck Gameplay Manual. I was just wondering. Where's the fun on a game like that?!

  • yoooomannnn

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 7:51 am PT

    @cpinheiro2: Duh, it's an MMO! In MMOs you alongside the iconic characters.

  • cpinheiro2

    Posted Oct 20, 2009 2:19 am PT

    It looks like Joker, Batman, Superman, Flash and other iconic characters won't be playable. True?!

  • dellacresco

    Posted Oct 18, 2009 11:51 am PT

    Your PS3 has USB ports for a reason. You don't need a Playstation brand keyboard or anything, you can just plug any USB keyboard in and it will recognize it. Oh, and you can rest assured that there will be monthly fees.

  • skullzerodeath

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 1:57 pm PT

    Nah if theres a fee then im out too.

  • skullzerodeath

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 1:55 pm PT

    This should be on xbox360 too.

  • mikey1611

    Posted Sep 13, 2009 3:03 am PT

    I'm gonna have to buy the keypad for the controller for this to chat. well not only for this. Pricey though. Using a mouse and keyboard would ruin the experience of a MMO on PS3, this is gonna be my first MMO ever. MMO? MMORPG? see what I mean?

  • JoeBobKill25

    Posted Sep 10, 2009 4:39 pm PT

    I like the DC universe a bit more than Marvel, but I like Marvel just as well. I love Marvel ultimate alliance However, question (saw this asked below too): How is this different from Champions Online? Also, how would you be able to talk with friends?

  • skyydragonn

    Posted Sep 5, 2009 8:22 am PT

    @ Eliv_Saluki

    Unless I'm mistaken you can buy a keyboard/mouse for your PS3 (think they're PS2 originally though)

  • Evil_Saluki

    Posted Sep 4, 2009 1:01 am PT

    MMO games on the PS3? How do you talk to players effectivley? Do you have to press a key that makes a keyboard flip up, then you type in "Your standing in the wrong place! you'll kill us all" within 10 seconds?

    Does it have an intergrated voice chat thing, so we can try to talk to someone who doesn't even have sound turned on and doesn't own their own mike so we don't know if they can actually hear us or not?

    What's the difference to this and Champions online?

  • skunkynz

    Posted Aug 31, 2009 2:07 pm PT

    i admit this looks good, but marvel ultimate alliance looks better

  • Twitchgames

    Posted Aug 31, 2009 3:45 am PT

    Very pleased PS3 and PC are getting this instead of Xbox. Good old sony. This is another item we can add to the 'Why sony is better than Microsoft list'.

  • RatchetV1

    Posted Aug 30, 2009 5:14 pm PT

    the joker non-playable? fail -_-

  • Rockleelives

    Posted Aug 29, 2009 10:04 am PT

    ill scoop this baby up soon hopefully

  • legosonic2211

    Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:55 pm PT

    I think 1 of the bad guys should be ozymandias

  • JadAlAwar

    Posted Aug 26, 2009 10:57 am PT

    Awesome game i think it will be a very good game i cant ww8 for it to come out

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