DC Universe Online Technical Points
One of the things that shocked me was the poor graphics on the Playstation 3. For all the hyperbole about how great the graphics are on the Playstation 3, they’re really a bit crap in this game. Things often look chunky and jagged, draw distances are so close that you notice them, a lot, and the camera often gets into a position where you’re looking through part of your character in a most unflattering way. You can change the camera distance but it often doesn’t help. Also, I noticed that the game will not manage to fit itself properly on my old 4:3 TV. It seems like it was made for a wider screen as the HUD in unable to be seen on the edges even though I have the screen adjusted perfectly for everything else. Even the loading screens are fine in the game. Just the HUD seems wonky and goes off the screen.
Sound is decent at times and at other times bad. There seems to be no sound queuing and if you pick up or activate multiple things that have audio cues they will simply overlap. I picked up an info marker and then activated a kiosk and they simply talked over each other. Other than that, the sound is adequate. There’s a lot of voice work for major characters, some of them are good, some are bland, some don’t quite sound right.
DC Universe Online Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, DC Universe Online is one of the most ’grindy’ games I’ve ever played and that’s saying a lot. Nearly every single mission is to go kill/destroy/get 5/10/15 of something. Then it’s run to another spot, talk to someone, do the same thing. Both hero and villain missions are generally the same and some overlap in the fight against Brainiac.
DC Universe Online also has some instanced missions where you run into a building, fight through a hoard of generic bad guys then face off against a boss, which takes on the persona of a major DC character, Teen Titans, Raven/Trigon, Huntress, Zatanna, etc. It’s really formulaic and unoriginal.
They do include a feat in each building where you have to find a specific thing and interact with it in some way: put out flames on bookshelves, destroy certain crates, etc. Many things you can pick up turn green, these will turn blue signifying your ability to interact with them. Interesting but really just a sort of explore/collect game mechanic.
There are also some other faulty gameplay mechanics. Some enemies, when stunned, continue to attack you, notably, The Huntress. Police shoot you with guns, even when you’re in super speed and zig zagging. It’s like they have homing bullets. Also, while in super speed your character will often stop being animated and simply glide along in a frozen pose before the game seems to catch up again and realize you’re running.
Overall, DC Universe Online is thoroughly flawed. It’s lacking a lot of things that could have made it unique and instead it’s just a carbon copy MMO stamped into a DC Comics mold. There are all sorts of little niggling things that make me wonder how they ever considered it good or ready. Then again, it’s been in development for maybe three years or more so they were probably under some pressure to get it released. It’s shame that such potentially great licenses like those of WB and DC Comics were hastily made into this lackluster MMORPG.
Even though the game makes you want to come back from time to time it’s just not got the pull I had expected it to have. I imagine that the game probably won’t do extremely well and will probably be free-to-play by mid-2012.
