Hyperbole aside, City of Heroes has been one of the most enjoyable beta testing experiences of my gaming career.

First and foremost, City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) set in the fictitious Paragon City where costumed super beings are not only commonplace but needed to stem the tide of evil from taking over the city. Just the concept is outstanding. Now I can create a hero in any image I choose and shape them into whatever type of hero I choose for them to be. Perhaps my hero is the brooding loner with a debt to settle. Or perhaps my hero is an over-eager college student with an innate sense of honor who is exposed to an experiment gone horribly awry. But maybe my hero is a grieving psychopath bent on the destruction of organized crime by any means necessary. The possibilities appear to be endless.

City of Heroes is, above all else, a role-playing game. You create and manipulate the character. But unlike the current trend in MMORPGs, City of Heroes streamlines not only the character making process, but the game play experience as well. All characters are comprised of five ingredients; Origin, Archetype, Powers, Appearance, and Identity.

The Origin and Archtype represent the origin of the character and their powers. In terms of game play, power selection and costume, the differences are miniscule. Sometimes the generalities of the Origins and Archetypes border on the absurd when the character is taken as a whole, but this can be easily overlooked. Origins for characters consist of Mutant, Science, Technology, Magic and Natural. By now we are all familiar with how super-heroes can be created, but just for the sake of clarity I'll give a brief description of each origin type and a common comic book hero that corresponds with each origin; a Mutant is a character born with super-powers (Wolverine or Cyclops of the X-Men), a Science character was granted their power through some type of scientific accident or experiment (Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four), a Technology character gains their powers through the use of technology (Iron Man), a Magic character gains their power through the use of magic spells or artifacts (Dr. Strange or Juggernaut), and a Natural character is one who does not have a super power but has developed skills that are so refined as to be like a super-power (The Punisher or Batman).

Archetypes are the real key to a character in City of Heroes. No other attribute of your character will hold so much meaning or have such wide ranging affect. As with Origin the number of Archetypes is limited to a core number; Blaster, Controller, Defender, Scrapper and Tanker. And also like Origin, these are pretty self explanatory. A Blaster is a ranged damage specialist with a small number of hit points, A Controller manipulates the enemy from afar and assists their allies, a Defender specializes in defensive powers that help themselves and their allies, the Scrapper is the master of melee and the Tanker is the brute that stands in and takes the damage.

Once an Origin and Archetype have been chosen, you can move on to selecting the Power Set that your character will use throughout their career. Power Sets are broken into three categories, Primary, Secondary and Innate (or miscellaneous). While the Archetype of your character will determine which Power Sets you have to choose from, this does not limit a particular Power Set to one Archetype. In fact, there are many instances where Power Sets cross Archetypes such as Force Field, Kinetics, and Radiation. In one Archetype the Force Field may be a primary Power Set, in another, a secondary. The Innate Power Set is really just a catch all field for powers and skills that do not belong in either the primary or secondary Power Set groupings. When you begin your career the Innate Power Set will hold skills such as Brawl and Sprint and later you will earn other powers and skills such as Rest, Flight, Jump, etc.

This is the point in character generation where things can become a little absurd. For instance, you may choose to create a Natural Blaster character and give them the Rifle Power Set. That makes sense. Or even a Natural Scrapper with the Martial Arts Power Set. But what about a Natural Blaster with Radiation? Or a Natural Controller of Gravity? And to compound that absurdity, costume selection can enhance the oddity of such a character. Why not go for the hat trick with a Natural Blaster with Radiation powers and Medieval Armor named Billy Joe Jim Bob? Truly this type of situation is bizarre but in the context of the game it makes as much difference as the name of your hero, which is to say, none.

Perhaps the most powerful, and one of the most fun, aspects of character generation is the costume designer. There are a couple of billion choices in what type of costume your hero can sport and I'll admit that I've spent quite a bit of time in Atlas Plaza just watching the costumes go by. There are those who obviously take a lot of time and put a lot of pride into their costumes to make them fit the power and feeling of the characters as much as possible. Similarly there are obviously those who spend a considerable amount of time sifting through the closet of Jasper Parnevik and the super hero bargain bin at Value Village in order to create the single greatest monstrosity possible. Remarkably, there looked to be few who simply hit the random costume button and accepted whatever eyesore the computer spewed back at them. It is really a shame that more players did not take the time to really work on their costumes as the designer is really a tremendous piece of work. There are a couple of billion possible combinations and the textures and models blend together very nicely. When done properly, a creative player can even blend several different types of clothing, such as armor, leather boots, baggy pants, and a helmet, into a cohesive and stimulating design. It is also somewhat unfortunate that the costume plays absolutely no part in the success or failure of your character. Armor does not protect you any better than a T-Shirt. Unfortunate, but understandable. However, I would have liked to have some real variance in the type of costume one could design based on the Origin, Archetype and Power Sets chosen by the player. At the point in character creation where you begin to design your costume you have already chosen all of the critical components to your character, so why allow a Magic Controller with Gravity and Kinetics to have the Medieval Armor? Shouldn't they be afforded some really special Magic based choices? Yes, there were a few, a very few, instances where your earlier character choices influenced your costume design, but these were really very minor and not worth mentioning.

And finally, the Hero Identity Card. This is the final step in character creation and is as inconsequential to your career as costume design. You card is pretty cool looking with a mug shot of your character and space for your hero name and a description. As with most MMORPG titles, especially those in beta, the hero names often ranged from humorous to profane while the descriptions are almost universally left blank. I'm really hoping that the retail product sees just a little more effort put into the created character names, backgrounds and costumes. It is very easy to identify the configuration of a character in-game. Simply select the character and two icons appear that represent their particular configuration such as Magic Blaster or Mutant Tanker. Right click a character and choose the Info option from the context menu and you can see what the known powers for that character are as well as their character bio.

While City of Heroes my be a role-playing game foremost, it is closely followed by action. The developers have created a novel series of missions generation points known as contacts that keep the pace pumping along. In fact, there is little to no need to ever seek a street fight, though there are plenty of citizens in Paragon City that would benefit from some super-powered intervention.