With all the emphasis and fuss on big, epic stories, teamed with the success of Lord of the Rings in the movies industry and World of Warcraft in the gaming industry respectively, it seems like every MMO these days just has to have elves and orcs or it won't appeal to anyone.

I guess this happens when a big title sets the trend and everyone tries to steal a bit of its thundering success afterwards.

But as we've seen throughout time, taking a greater risk can also pay off a lot more than following the greatest path to glory every time.

Champions Online is unique in its way. We've seen great things from its predecessor City of Heroes/Villains, and now with a brand new graphics engine and a more dynamic and varied gameplay style, the new Cryptic Studios baby makes its way to the crowded MMO market.

The first thing you will notice, and this is either black or white, is the new "cartoon stylized" graphics, done with the help of cell shading, a pixel shader effect you've probably seen in the latest Prince of Persia and should be making its way to your gaming stations soon in the new Gearbox Software game Borderlands as well.

Why a black or white thing? Because I've seen people put off by the graphics instantly, saying they will never play such a game ever. So, yes, not for everybody. But Champions Online's graphics has a unique charm, bringing a comic book world to life, and a lot of superhero "press" readers will be just extatic to create their favorite story characters and play them.

As we're used to by now from Cryptic, the character creation screen is one of the easiest and at the same time most complete you've ever seen in a game. There are just so many possibilities and it is just up to your immagination to build your hero. There is of course a small twist, in that in case you will create a copyrighted character like say... Superman, and someone chooses to complain, Cryptic will force you to change costumes. Eh, copyright laws, what can you do...

Passing by this - arguably the strongest feature of the game - I am really happy to say gameplay is for me one of the next top things. It's just so fun and dynamic. There is also some sort of balance, because every class uses the same resource to use abilities/spells - call them what you want. An energy bar, based on your Endurance stat, is available to you. A fast primary attack mentained unless you cancel it builds up energy, but doesn't cause much damage. It can also apply various effects like fear, or lingering flames.

Once you have enough energy you can use a more powerful skill in order to crowd control, do a big blast damage or heal. Every other ability except your energy builder consumes energy.

Most of the "long cast" abilities have a varying damage, and if you hold the button down longer you will do more damage, but in case you are on the run you can just release it at any time, for a portion of that damage. This applies for crowd control skills as well - the longer the cast, the longer the hold.