Being evil has never been so much fun. The every day superhero of City of Heroes and Paragon City be advised, there's a new evil in town and you're no longer limited to battling just computer controlled villains any more. With City of Villains, the successfully massively multiplayer comic book world finally gets a new evil by allowing players to take on the role of sinister super villains.
Storyline/Missions
City of Villains is set on a group of small fictitious Caribbean islands called the Rogue Isles. The game begins with a tutorial in which, with the help of others, you must escape from the famous Ziggurat prison. This sequence more or less allows you to become acquainted with the basic game controls as well as the general interface. Once the tutorial is completed you will be transported to Mercy City on Mercy Island where your life as a villain begins.
The Arachronos villain group is the most influential group on the Rogue Isles and they will be key in jump starting your career. Your initial Arachonos contacts, which are computer controlled contacts, will assign you missions involving everything from assassinations to robbery. These first missions can be used to get your feet wet and help you build up your powers.
The missions in City of Villains a great way to build up your powers, gain enhancements and increase levels but the true fun of City of Villains is when you come face to face with super heroes from City of Heroes. The game features many new Player vs Player areas which are located in a sort of DMZ zone between the Hero and Villain controlled territories of the game world. There are some missions that will send you into these areas but for the most part it's your decision for entering these areas.
If you decided to stick with the computer controlled missions, most of the early ones are hack and slash type missions and are very linear for the most part. They do a good job however, of getting you the experience you need in order to advance to the fun missions and venturing into player on player combat.
Character Creation
The character creation aspect of City of Villains is excellent and is very detailed, yet at the same time very easy and fun to do. Much in the same fashion of City of Heroes, there are no character attributes to worry about such as Strength, dexterity, etc.. Character creation begins with selecting an archetype. City of Villains archetypes differ from City of Heroes and include: Brute, Stalker, Mastermind, Dominator and Corruptor. These archetypes define your character's nature and power. Brutes for example specialize in hand to hand combat and use their brute strength and powers to over come enemies, while a Corruptor uses more ranges attacks and likes to keep his or her distance from enemies.
After selecting an archetype your character will then need an origin that explains how he received his "special" abilities. Choices range from Science, Mutation, Magic, Technology or Natural. The character's origin will play a role in determining what enhancements you'll be eligible for throughout the game.
Selecting power sets and starting powers as well as the character's look and costume is the final phases in character generation. Once all of this is completed you're ready to enter the online world of Rogue Isles. One side note, players will have the opportunity to change around the look of their characters at certain locations within Mercy City for those that are not pleased with the appearance upon entering the game world.
