Marvel Heroes

I was going to treat you all to another Skyrim update, but I had to postpone it when I received the latest news on what was formerly known as Marvel Universe Online (MUO). Marvel has to be my favourite in the comic book world, with DC following a close second, and so finding out about these comic book MMORPG's was incredibly exciting. I was left feeling a little disappointed after DCUO, but I'm willing to blame that on the poor quality of my last TV's screen instead of the game - downloading patch notes now to test the game out again. So, I'm expecting good things from Marvel Heroes - I don't want it to be a let down.

The game has no set release date (although I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this year)and it will be released on PC only from what we've been told so far - which I'm pleased with. It will be a free-to-play browser-based game, which is especially nice for those of us who really cannot afford another online subscription, and it will feature the awesome-ness that is Dr. Doom as the main villain. Sounds pretty good so far.

Playable superheroes:

- Iron Man
- Ms. Marvel
- Human Torch
- Storm
- Cyclops
- Hulk
- Spider-man
- Thor
- Wolverine
- Captain America
- Thing
- Squirrel Girl
- Nova
- Cable
- Deadpool

Personally, I'm hoping that this list is going to grow, because there are certain heroes I want to see as playable characters such as Hawkeye, Ant-man, Black Panther...the list goes on.

The question you may be asking is 'how is this going to work', the answer being, we're not entirely sure yet. From what I've been told it will be similar to Marvel Superhero Squad Online (MSSO) - a game I had never played because it's for kids. However, as this one is aimed at an older audience I decided to make an account and play around on the kids version so that I could tell you more about the gameplay to give us all a clearer idea of what the game will be like.

I registered for MSSO under the name Hawkeye12345 (pretty unimaginative, I know) and got to work on testing out the controls. I think my Squad name is Chaotic Punisher as I just went for a random one. Then, the process of waiting for it to load on my browser began. As it's a browser based game, I figured I'd just use my writing laptop rather than pull out my gaming one...it takes a lot longer to load on a low powered laptop.

My first thought when the game was starting up was "I really hope the characters don't look like this in the new game" as the art was incredibly childish - which is good for children, but will hopefully be different in the new game. One thing I was pleased to see was some of the lesser known early Avengers were present on the loading screen. It died on my little laptop before the game could even start so I had to switch to the gaming one - a bit of a pain to be honest.

Re-starting the game, I was taken through the basic controls. If Marvel Heroes is going to work in the same way as MSSO then moving your character across the screen is very simple - simply hold down the left mouse button and slide the mouse in the way you want your character to move. It's a very easy way to move and is something different from the usual WASD or arrow key movement. As with most games, the spacebar is used to jump. To enter buildings or kill things you simply left-click, again making the controls easy to use. Whether or not they'll change this for the older version I'm unsure.

The thing that might make you wonder is the list of available heroes. It's not like DCUO where your character merely has powers that are similar to the chosen hero, no, it would appear that you are collecting heroes. If Marvel Heroes is anything like MSSO then you will be collecting heroes for your team so you can build the most powerful squad. That squad will work to complete missions which will earn you gold, silver or tickets. Gold can be used to purchase more heroes, silver for equipment and tickets on the spinning wheel on which you can win gold, silver or items. It's a fun and simple system. Taking the gameplay and controls in mind, it looks like Marvel's new browser-based game will be simple when it comes to playing allowing for relaxed gameplay. Whether or not they plan to complicate the controls, we don't know yet. However, I reckon it's going to be some light hearted fun. What do you think? Will Marvel Heroes be the next best free browser game or is it going to flop?

Valhalla