Played Lately: Champions Online

• In the wake of the great Allods Online explosion, I decided I wanted to play a game with a lot less drama involved. So of course I returned to Champions Online. No drama there, right? (You have my permission to groan here.)


• Upon returning to the game, I discovered that not all that much had changed. At least nothing big had changed. But there are little things. Various bugs have been fixed and crafting has been updated. I also found that I had a lot of crap weighing down my inventory so my first stop was to sell or bank everything I didn't need.


• My hero of choice upon returning was my favorite, Arcfire. She's the character I started beta with and have leveled the farthest. And she is, by far, my favorite superhero to play. There is something about throwing fiery blasts and causing huge explosions that makes me happy. When I logged in a few days ago, she was level 37, just three away from the level cap. Although that would be good enough to move over to the expansion zone when Vibora Bay arrives, I wanted to reach the current endgame before that launches.


• Monster Island was still Monster Island. Nothing to complain about there. I rather quickly moved from fighting VIPER in the western edge of the island to battling the Elder Worms along the northern coast. There are lots of fun little story arcs to run though. My only issue was that one of the mission chains ends in a five player lair. Ugh. Hopefully I'll be able to get a group together long enough to destroy it since soloing didn't work so well. (Actually, screw that. I'm gearing up and trying it again!)


• From Monster Island, I finally returned to Lemuria. Although it earned the appellation "Lag-muria" once upon a time, I seem to have avoided the worst of it. The undersea kingdom is quite a lot of fun. It's still one of the most interesting, both visually and structurally. While the other zones are divided in more traditional (thus arbitrary) ways, Lemuria's level bands are broken up the deeper one descends under the ocean. You can swim up to where the ocean floor falls away and see the next set of terrors arrayed before you.


• What I was looking forward to most, however, was renewing my campaign against Project T, Arcfire's current nemesis. The giant cat-man was very elusive a lot of the time. His minions rarely came out to assault me. But when they did, they always left a clue for the next nemesis mission behind. I don't know if people complained about always being jumped my minions, but I kind of miss them occasionally showing up to mess with my adventures. Project T's most recent plan was to free Ghost Veil (Really, Cryptic?) from her stony tomb and partner with her to take over the world. The five thousand year old villainess wasn't having any of that so I, along with someone who looked suspiciously like Lara Croft, blew up the mine and sealed her back in. I guess her weakness was several tons of rock. My nemesis is still on the run, but I'll catch up with him soon.


• Through all of this, Arcfire leveled from 37 to 39. I'm just one away from the level cap. I'm hoping to hit that last level soon and see what the endgame has in store for me.

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© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.