DC Universe Online Updated Hands-On

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.