Issue Date: April 3, 2005
Create a superhero
Is there anyone who hasn't dreamed of being a superhero? Maybe you'd be a pigtailed teen in a purple cheerleader outfit whose cartwheels and kicks disarm the nastiest foe. Or perhaps a heavyset retiree in yellow tights who, with a searing glance, can make the earth quake under an attacking villain. You can be either one, or anyone else, in cyberspace.
At City of Heroes, you can design a crime fighter to your specifications.
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CityOfHeroes.com is the first stop for fulfilling such fantasies. Here, you can build your own superhero by choosing its sex, height, weight and more. "There's trillions of costume options," says the site's lead designer, Jack Emmert, "and every power you can imagine. Except stretching. Stretching is real hard to do."
But the fun doesn't end with conceiving your own superpowers. Next up is battling the baddies in Paragon City, a 3-D world populated by other caped-crusader wannabes built by visitors to the site. More than 120,000 players move about in search of contacts -- journalists, cops, bartenders -- who assign them missions, such as saving a kidnapped scientist or preventing the construction of an evil robot. Invariably, these involve lots of fighting with bad guys.
The software costs $39.99, and there's a $14.95 monthly subscription fee. Subscribers receive an old-fashioned comic book each month, with storylines that feature the superheroes they've created.
City of Heroes is what gamers call an MMOG, shorthand for "massively multiplayer online game." There are others, like Star Wars Galaxies, World of WarCraft and The Matrix Online. But City of Heroes is the only one I know of that lets you create a new superhero. And it's designed for quick fun; no need to devote 20 hours a week playing (as avid gamers often do).
-- Paul Bond
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