Review: City of Villains / City of Heroes Issue 9

Publisher: NCSoft    Developer: Cryptic Studios    Platforms: PC
Posted on July 14th, 2007 at 11:52pm by Mongoose

With spare time on my hands I present a review of the Last 2 issues of City of Heroes/City of Villains, Issue 8: To Protect and Serve was released in November 2006 and Issue 9: Breakthrough was released in May 2007.

Issue 8: To Protect and Server

Police Band Missions
These are the heroic version of the villainous newspaper missions. You will get randomly generated missions and after you complete the set number of Police Band Missions from your own Police Band Radio, you should return to your Police Band contact and he will give you the safeguard mission.

Safeguard Missions
Safeguard for heroes are quite the opposite of Mayhem Missions for villains. When you enter the mission, the bank is being robbed, you have to get there as soon as possible and stop the looter’s before they have a chance to get to their get away vehicle.

When you’ve done that, Mission Complete – or is it? You now have 15 minutes remaining to explore the mission. Villains are destroying Paragon property and you have to stop them. This is basically what you may choose to do at the beginning of a Mayhem Mission; there are specific mobs that give you keys. For each side mission you complete you will be given extra time to go and do more in the mission. Side missions include Break-In, Arms Deal, Bombing, Jail Break and Arson.

Break-In – The bank isn’t the only building being targeted for robbery. This is basically preventing the Smash and Grab side mission that villains get in mayhem missions. When you get into the shop, some villains will be at the safe, and if you don’t defeat them within a certain time, the side mission is failed and you should go back outside.

Arms Deal – An arms deal is being held and you have to raid the villain base and stop it, and maybe even take the weapon for yourself.

Bombing – Enter the sewers and head through caves through to an office. This side mission also has a time on so you need to be quick otherwise the office has been bombed and the side mission has been failed.

Jail Break – Foes are breaking a Rouge Isle Villain out of jail, you have to be the one who stops this, and makes sure the villain isn’t set free.

Arson – I’d say this is the same as bombing, except you just go into a building, deactivate all the bombs before the time runs out or the building will be set on fire.

These side missions are random so you don’t know which ones you will get, as you get higher and move onto protecting new places you will get more side missions to do.

Aside from side missions; vandals appear and you are alerted, these enemies will destroy objects until you turn up and stop them. You will get additional time for each of these you stop and for each side mission which has its set amount of additional time you get.

Each Safeguard Mission has an exploring badge and an achievement badges and if you complete the Mission you will receive a temporary power.

New Overbrook
Faultline was completely changed in this issue. Arachnos made their first appearance in Paragon for Player VS Environment characters as they had come to Faultline to search old supergroup bases for salvageable weapons. I have not done all of the Faultline missions but I have done quite a few, but I can say it is one of the best story arc’s in the City of games.

Freedom Corps and Paragon Police Department are also found in Faultline to assure that it is a safe area to live in as citizens move back.

The level range for missions is 15 to 25 but the zone is open to everyone as it is now safe to enter.
There are also quite a few Easter Eggs in this zone that you will have fun finding.

Veteran Rewards
As the title says, Rewards for long time players were released with this issue. To receive these simply have you account subscribed to, for every 3 months you will receive another reward. This is all based on the amount of time you have spent. Most of these rewards are ok, but I do not think some of the later rewards seem to be worth it. For example, the 24th month is a badge to show you’ve paid for 24 months, a power to teleport you to your base and special base items, which are posters of the City of Heroes comic covers and veteran’s titles available for all my characters over the level 15. These are very useless for me as I do not have a Supergroup Base that is good or one that has teleporters, and that I don’t really need the titles. But someone else in the world may find these useful I for one don’t. I am not too fussed about this though as I’m not paying for the game just to get these.

Issue 9: Breakthrough

Auction Houses
Using auction houses, you can now buy and sell from a wider variety of items. Any salvage, enhancement or recipe could be up for sale. I say could in the sense that only items that other players have put up for auction are for sale, you can however place a bid on anything, so if it does go up for bid, you can get it as long as your bid is higher than the sale price.

Invention System
Using recipes and salvage you can invent special enhancements, costume pieces, temporary powers and more. Using these there are a wide range of possibilities, like if you’re really rich, you can make all your attacks have a fear possibility just to see everyone being scared.

Statesman Taskforce
A new high-level PvE taskforce is open, and Statesman needs your help. He knows that Lord Recluse is up to something, and is building an unknown weapon. The first mission in the taskforce is where you go to the factory to destroy some of the equipment to delay the completion of the weapon. The next mission is to bring in Dr Aeon to find out what you need to know, but it’s a trap, Aeon get’s away while you have to defeat 4 of his powerful minions. Now he’s got away, he will surely have something planned for your next attack, so your sent to get the Nexus of Thorns, as it is powerful and could be used to defeat Aeon. Since Arachnos know that we want Aeon, they have place him in top security and have sent 4 of the most powerful super villains Arachnos have, but not Recluse’s lieutenants, no, it’s their minions. And if you’ve played through missions in City of Villains, you’re sure to have met them, Wretch, Silver Mantis, Barracuda and Ice Mistral. After you have defeated these and captured Dr Aeon, you are then sent to Grandville to stop Lord Recluse’s plans. His plan was to build towers that could transmit the power of any super-person and put it into himself. And he can set it to any hero in particular, including Statesman, the whole of the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators, so that’s why they can not stop this threat. You first have to defeat Recluse’s lieutenants after this recluse will start his plan. You have to defeat the towers to weaken Lord Recluse before you can defeat him. But after you do, you have Saved the World. On completion of this, you will be offered either a Synthetic Hamidon Enhancement, A Rare Recipe or a range of Single Origin Enhancements. I would say this taskforce requires the right powers to get done in the shortest amount of time as it took our team 4 hours to get to the last mission and another 4 hours on the last mission, yet the missions are quite fun as they feel completely different to regular missions.

New Hamidon Encounter
Heroes of Paragon City have banded together to take down the Hamidon in the past, now it’s the villain’s chance. They have completely changed what you need to take down the Hamidon so that you need less players for it, as only 50 people can get into the Abyss. There are new inspirations called Essence of Earth that help you against the Hamidon’s damage. But you need to defeat Devouring Earth monsters to get this so everyone who is raiding who wants these must do so prior to the scheduled raid.

Hamidon raids are not as popular anymore as you can get them as rewards for the Lord Recluse Strikeforce or the Statesman Taskforce.

8/10