I was invited in the closed last beta for "Infinite Crisis", the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) title from WB Interactive and Turbine Inc. featuring DC Superheroes and villains. It has nothing to do with the 2006 comic book event of the same name, beyond involving the DC Multiverse in some form.
The game caught my attention upon reveal; I'm not big on MOBA, but I don't hate it either, I'm a DC fan and there's good talent working behind it, as Turbine are the developers of both "Dungeons & Dragons: Online", as well as "Lord of the Rings: Online", two of the better MMORPGs that we have.
This isn't a review, not even a conclusive opinion on the game; it's still very considerably early in development and a lot of fixes and tweaks need to be made. What follows is merely a recount of my first brush with the game, through a handful of matches that I was able to play.
For starters keep in mind that while I'm acquainted with MOBA as a sub-genre through several League of Legends and DOTA2 games, I'm not very good at it. It's the type of game that has no purpose and exists for grinding and competitive reasons, with its mastery relying on good knowledge not so much of mechanics, but instead of roster, powers, levels and power-ups, as well as the ability to keep up with everything that's going on during a game; that's a lot of things happening at the same time. Its very nature is just antithetical to the reason I play games.
First contact with the game was problematic, not unexpectedly. Login issues were constant due to server and service overload. I don't know how many people are supposed to access the beta of a MOBA game, in order to get enough players for matchmaking without delays and avoid lagging, but the login queue seemed pretty damned long. Having said that, once login was achieved, matchmaking took merely a minute at worst and despite other technical issues, I dealt with no visible lag.
Once I managed to log in for the first time and get into a game, the graphics didn't load. Effects and the interface were visible, but if it had a texture, it was black and missing. No available graphic settings made a difference. Eventually I resolved the problem by switching DirectX from version 11 back to 9. A teammate in a later game had the same problem. I tried to report it, as I was supposed to in a beta testing, but upon switching the setting, l couldn't log in again and for the following 3-4 hours.
As for the game itself... it's alright. It doesn't even begin to compete with League of Legends and DOTA, at least not at this point in development. Enough fairly diverse toons are available for varied play and they are actually fairly authentic and loyal to the source material. No Superman though, but don't worry! Take fifty version of Batman to balance it out! Jesus Christ, Warner.
Fortunately Captain Marvel is a free character and my personal choice. Poor Cap is the world's mightiest mortal-- unless he runs into Vampire Batman or Doomsday. Fuck him then. The problem with Cap is that unless you cap him (yes, I am very funny), he kind of blows as he acts like a tank. Two AoE attacks that leech on energy like Activision leeches off of stupid fratboys and all he has is resilience.
I'm only bringing this up because between getting familiar with the game and dealing with far more user-friendly characters as enemies, gameplay was like SnM for me. I enjoyed it, I guess, but boy did it hurt!
The thing that stuck out the most for me, though, was that I actually needed some time to get used to the game, which is fairly odd; it's practically the same as other MOBA games, down to the interface and control scheme. One noticeable difference was item management. The shop not only seems a little poor, currently, but the strongest items are not hard to acquire and then whatever extra money you make until the game is over, you have nothing to spend on except maybe potions. Perhaps some of them make combinations for optimal performance on the battle, but I didn't have the time to verify.
On the bright side, the items are divided into three categories: strength, health and power. A helpful bar makes it easy to keep track of your role in the game, based on which of the three is dominant.
By the second game I had that down, but the actual gameplay still eluded me for the longest time. I'm used to the standard MOBA tower-defense play. I never play Dominion (other genres call the mode "Domination" and/or "Control") and I honestly don't know what the mode entails.
Currently the only available map for Infinite Crisis is a Dominion map, in which I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, except capture control points obviously.
Another thing that struck me as odd was the lack of minions. For the first two matches I didn't even know they existed and when I did get wind of them, they were just too few and honestly kind of useless. This however may be my inexperience with this mode of the game and not an issue with the game itself. I'm used to minions acting as a buffer zone between me and the enemy towers or player and since the Dominion means circular play instead of pushing in a straight line, minions likely have a different role.
It's just not a role I could discern, as such all of my games could be characterized by PvP beatdowns until the score ran out.
Final thoughts can't be final and honestly no opinion can be formed from a handful of matches, from an inexperienced MOBA player, on a game that's still in the early stages of Closed Beta. All I can say, it's not bad. There is potential. A richer in-game store and better character/skill balance are the first step. Added bonuses such as interactive maps that force strategic decisions, like in DOTA2 will definitely help.
Some technical work remains to be done, as I experienced far too many frame-rate drops (not to mention that whole blank map thing). Plus learning how to play the damned thing can't possibly harm, but that's up to me and whatever teammates I end up with; after all the primary condition for scoring a victory in MOBA is the team dynamic and even one weak link can doom the whole game. All that aside, I will personally get a better handle of the game once more modes are revealed, closer to what I'm used to playing.
But I guess all I can say from my perspective and keeping in mind the early development stage of the game, so far so good.
The game caught my attention upon reveal; I'm not big on MOBA, but I don't hate it either, I'm a DC fan and there's good talent working behind it, as Turbine are the developers of both "Dungeons & Dragons: Online", as well as "Lord of the Rings: Online", two of the better MMORPGs that we have.
This isn't a review, not even a conclusive opinion on the game; it's still very considerably early in development and a lot of fixes and tweaks need to be made. What follows is merely a recount of my first brush with the game, through a handful of matches that I was able to play.
For starters keep in mind that while I'm acquainted with MOBA as a sub-genre through several League of Legends and DOTA2 games, I'm not very good at it. It's the type of game that has no purpose and exists for grinding and competitive reasons, with its mastery relying on good knowledge not so much of mechanics, but instead of roster, powers, levels and power-ups, as well as the ability to keep up with everything that's going on during a game; that's a lot of things happening at the same time. Its very nature is just antithetical to the reason I play games.
First contact with the game was problematic, not unexpectedly. Login issues were constant due to server and service overload. I don't know how many people are supposed to access the beta of a MOBA game, in order to get enough players for matchmaking without delays and avoid lagging, but the login queue seemed pretty damned long. Having said that, once login was achieved, matchmaking took merely a minute at worst and despite other technical issues, I dealt with no visible lag.
Once I managed to log in for the first time and get into a game, the graphics didn't load. Effects and the interface were visible, but if it had a texture, it was black and missing. No available graphic settings made a difference. Eventually I resolved the problem by switching DirectX from version 11 back to 9. A teammate in a later game had the same problem. I tried to report it, as I was supposed to in a beta testing, but upon switching the setting, l couldn't log in again and for the following 3-4 hours.
 |
| Shazam! |
As for the game itself... it's alright. It doesn't even begin to compete with League of Legends and DOTA, at least not at this point in development. Enough fairly diverse toons are available for varied play and they are actually fairly authentic and loyal to the source material. No Superman though, but don't worry! Take fifty version of Batman to balance it out! Jesus Christ, Warner.
Fortunately Captain Marvel is a free character and my personal choice. Poor Cap is the world's mightiest mortal-- unless he runs into Vampire Batman or Doomsday. Fuck him then. The problem with Cap is that unless you cap him (yes, I am very funny), he kind of blows as he acts like a tank. Two AoE attacks that leech on energy like Activision leeches off of stupid fratboys and all he has is resilience.
I'm only bringing this up because between getting familiar with the game and dealing with far more user-friendly characters as enemies, gameplay was like SnM for me. I enjoyed it, I guess, but boy did it hurt!
The thing that stuck out the most for me, though, was that I actually needed some time to get used to the game, which is fairly odd; it's practically the same as other MOBA games, down to the interface and control scheme. One noticeable difference was item management. The shop not only seems a little poor, currently, but the strongest items are not hard to acquire and then whatever extra money you make until the game is over, you have nothing to spend on except maybe potions. Perhaps some of them make combinations for optimal performance on the battle, but I didn't have the time to verify.
 |
| Strength of Hercules, Courage of Achilles |
On the bright side, the items are divided into three categories: strength, health and power. A helpful bar makes it easy to keep track of your role in the game, based on which of the three is dominant.
By the second game I had that down, but the actual gameplay still eluded me for the longest time. I'm used to the standard MOBA tower-defense play. I never play Dominion (other genres call the mode "Domination" and/or "Control") and I honestly don't know what the mode entails.
Currently the only available map for Infinite Crisis is a Dominion map, in which I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, except capture control points obviously.
Another thing that struck me as odd was the lack of minions. For the first two matches I didn't even know they existed and when I did get wind of them, they were just too few and honestly kind of useless. This however may be my inexperience with this mode of the game and not an issue with the game itself. I'm used to minions acting as a buffer zone between me and the enemy towers or player and since the Dominion means circular play instead of pushing in a straight line, minions likely have a different role.
 |
| Fighting for control |
It's just not a role I could discern, as such all of my games could be characterized by PvP beatdowns until the score ran out.
Final thoughts can't be final and honestly no opinion can be formed from a handful of matches, from an inexperienced MOBA player, on a game that's still in the early stages of Closed Beta. All I can say, it's not bad. There is potential. A richer in-game store and better character/skill balance are the first step. Added bonuses such as interactive maps that force strategic decisions, like in DOTA2 will definitely help.
Some technical work remains to be done, as I experienced far too many frame-rate drops (not to mention that whole blank map thing). Plus learning how to play the damned thing can't possibly harm, but that's up to me and whatever teammates I end up with; after all the primary condition for scoring a victory in MOBA is the team dynamic and even one weak link can doom the whole game. All that aside, I will personally get a better handle of the game once more modes are revealed, closer to what I'm used to playing.
But I guess all I can say from my perspective and keeping in mind the early development stage of the game, so far so good.
 |
| Whoops. We may have fucked up. |
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