An Elseworlds review of DC Universe Online
The following is a transmission from a parallel Earth within the Multiverse where DC Universe Online has already been released:
DC Universe Online is a courageous breath of fresh air! They have admirably risen to the challenge of building a game around iconic characters that players will NOT be allowed to control. Yes, dear readers, they have done the seemingly impossible – they’ve built a game involving Batman where *I* don’t mind that I can’t BE Batman!
While some early cinematic trailers had fans worried that they’d be spending all of their time fighting generic thugs and playing the role of “sidekick” to well known NPC characters, DCUO’s team has instead developed a bold, unique world for its players to inhabit.
We begin with a flashback of sorts – a battle rages between earth’s mightiest heroes and its most terrible villains. After some serious fan-service, Lex Luthor’s forces stand triumphant – the corpses of the Justice League littering the ground around them. At this moment, an armada controlled by Braniac emerges and begins a siege of the now hero-less Earth! In the wake of his greatest victory, Luthor is faced with the prospect of total annihilation! He is forced to devise a bold and startling contingency…
Now, the “safe” choice here would be to use some sort of preposterous gag involving time travel where Lex Luthor goes back to the past to warn his enemies of the impending invasion (instead of, for example, just telling HIMSELF not to kill them all and/or to crush Braniac back when he was just a green-skinned doofus in hotpants) and blah blah blah. Ignore that! There is no such silliness here!
DCUO wisely avoids this rather clichéd and unsatisfying route and instead offers a more gripping scenario:
The world is a near-futuristic dystopian hellscape where most of the well-known characters are dead. Led by a battle-scarred Lex Luthor, a desperate and tenuous alliance of new heroes and villains must form a resistance army whose sole purpose is to repel the invading Braniac armada filled with strange and powerful creatures from a thousand worlds AND super-powered zombie humans controlled by Braniac directly.
Inspired by their martyred idols (both heroic and villainous) players can ally their characters with power-appropriate groups like the Speed Force, the Marvels, Amazonians or the Sons of Batman. Each group has at its center monuments to the great deeds of the fallen giants that inspired them and players are tasked with living up to those legends as they seek to fill the void left in the wake of their demise! You can sport their colors and wear costumes and armor that honor and reflect their iconic status and – because you do so as part of a coherently implemented group and movement – it never bothers you to see a city filled with LITERALLY NOTHING BUT PEOPLE IN SLIGHTLY-MODIFIED BATMAN COSTUMES.
The alternative really is silly. Save the world by grinding away on generic henchmen while the Real Deal Heroes fight in scripted, but ultimately pointless instanced encounters? Ye gods! Change the future by stopping urban street crime? Perish the thought! Play a villain who ACTUALLY has the ability to defeat Batman? Nonsense!
Luckily, we have no such problems to worry about. DCUO is an excellent, innovative game that brings new vision and wonder for both gamers and comic fans alike!
Editor’s Note:
No one from OUR Earth has had the chance to properly play or review DC Universe Online yet, so the quality and features of OUR universe’s DCUO remain uncertain at this time. Concerned marketeers, lawyers, etc. should find a dimensional portal and seek out reviewers from parallel Earths if they have comments or concerns.
In other words, this is satire.
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