I apologize if this review seems a little early, seeing as how closed beta started today, but I couldn't waste my time on the game any longer than I need to. For those of you who do not know, Chaos Heroes Online is a MOBA, a type of MMO that was made famous by the game, League of Legends. That being said, MOBAs have been popping up all over the MMO industry and it seems to be yours truly's bloody job to beta test each and every one of these wretched excuses for creative content. Don't get me wrong: the characters in these games almost always have surprisingly rich backgrounds and origins. Things that the games NEVER DELVE INTO; that's right, these games never seem to mention the character's stories or personalities outside of long paragraphs that you can read on the game's wiki or the annoying statements made by the character after each movement or attack.
As you all know, one of the biggest achievements by video games and online games are their abilities to make us feel something about the main character that we are playing as. When our character feels pain, we feel pain. When our character feels heartbreak, we feel heartbreak. When someone disses our character's mother, you can bet that we'll be right beside them when they kick their butt. But with MOBAs, you will literally feel nothing towards your character except annoyance at their bloody corny lines that they will repeat over and over again like a doll with a string on its back and a preference to their respective skills and attacks. Some people claim that because MOBAs, unlike a majority of other MMOs, don't let you customize your characters, players feel distanced from their characters. Although MMOs were not the first industry to introduce customizing the main character to allow the player to connect on a higher level with the storyline, they have most definitely capitalized on it. In fact, it was this level of customization that drew me into the MMO industry in the first place; as a designer, I take great pride in my creations and often hunger for more examples to create aesthetically pleasing designs. However, just because MOBAs do not feature this sort of freedom over appearance, it does not excuse them from helping the player create a connection with the character that they decide to play as. As we all know, you can't customize your "Mario", your "Link", your "Desmond Miles" or your "Sonic the Hedgehog". Despite this, video game designers have managed to create memorable characters and icons without resorting to writing long, detailed paragraphs on Internet websites.
They create relatable and lovable characters through a mixture of cutscenes and in-game content that shows insight into the character that the player is playing as. Take, for example, Mario; how long did you play that little NES game, desperately trying to rescue that princess from the clutches of the Koopa king? When you finally got her, did you let out a yell or a shout in pride that you had finally completed this quest and your character finally got the girl (more or less)? And, if it's not too obscure of a reference, the NES is a console that works using an 8-bit processor, meaning the graphics were leagues behind what today's technology can produce. It was through YOUR effort that Mario became what we wanted him to be (which was Peach's boyfriend.... or something like that).
Some say that a game's gameplay leads to a fan base for the main character, merely because the players love the game that much. Let me tell you something: MOBAs are NOT fun to play, they're ADDICTING to play. By setting up this complex system of using gold to buy items in the heat of battle, use items in battle, and work towards the top of the scoreboard, MOBA creators force you to first spend time trying to figure out how this system works, then spend time trying to perfect this system that you took time out of your day to learn, and then beat everyone you can because you wasted all of this time to learn how to play this bloody game and you want to get your time's worth. There is a reason why you can't directly log out of a game that you start: because they want to make sure that you have everyone else convinced you're having fun and to force you to play this thing until you're hooked. The fact that you have to click on where you want to go on the map and to alternate between right clicking and left clicking forces you to constantly focus on the game and not the world around you.
Don't take me for someone who hates a type of game because I am not necessarily good at them. Within the first hour of release, I had managed to reach the top 10 players out of the 5000 who were chosen to participate in closed beta. And you know what? I hated every second of it. I've wasted a perfectly good evening inside playing something that I don't even remotely enjoy, but rather am drawn into by a set of rules and incentives.
Anyways, there's my review of Chaos Heroes Online and every other darn MOBA out there right now.
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