Superhero Simulator

[Techwright]

Superhero Simulator

 

This came up in my Steam daily queue today.  Anyone ever played it?  Thoughts?  It's early access and on sale at USA$9 today.   

 

From what I've read, the game challenges you to not only survive your superhero life, but also your secret identity life.

 

Reading the reviews so far, I'm seeing expressions like "very fun and promising game".  Even the two negatives I found in English expressed their excitement at the "potential" of the game. One commented in the positive about the developers being quite active in listening to player feedback. Reading these two, it seems they're just hung up on the early development.  (I've never understood why people insist on an early access game being practically finished.)

 

 

 

 

 

[biostem]

Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but they didn't show or tout anything about being able to actually make your own character or pick their powers, which leads me to believe there may be some limited character customization, but the powers would be preset, (looks like some basic ss/invuln type stuff and perhaps super speed or parkour)...

[Techwright]

15 minutes ago, biostem said:

Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but they didn't show or tout anything about being able to actually make your own character or pick their powers, which leads me to believe there may be some limited character customization, but the powers would be preset, (looks like some basic ss/invuln type stuff and perhaps super speed or parkour)...

 

It's definitely early days.  I know from one of the critiques, for example, that the early access didn't launch with a female form, though the vid below shows evidence that it is coming. 

 

Here's a video with 18 minutes of gameplay.  You'll notice some costume customization in the first 2 1/2 minutes.  Nothing to the level of CoH of course, but there's at least some customization.   

 

Power customization: yeah, I'm not sure that's added yet.  The demo gameplay seems to show a Shazam-type character: powers rivaling superman, but with some sort of destructive energy blasts which can shatter a car or concussively knock the air defueling a fire.   Now what it did show was an Achievements rewards panel at the 5:22 mark, though I'm not clear what's involved in that.  Is it how players get more costume parts, tweak the powers, other?

 

Travel and combat demonstration begin at the 2:45 mark.  I must say, I'm impressed with the flight ability, and really wish CoH resembled it.  There's some interesting speedster bits, too.  Street combat shows blood, and knockback is, at times, significant here.

 

The latter half of the demo dips into the troubled secret identity side of things.

 

 

[Techwright]

I've been watching additional players, including this one who is tackling the early access game rather than just the demo.  This one shows that additional Skills are earned,  and that sometimes "Achievements" rewards can offer abilities, so there appears to be some power customization of some sort, though on the lines of a Superman to whom writers just keep piling up new powers.  I've seen, for example, two different ways of fighting building fires now.  The demo version had the character using some sort of concussive energy to smother the fire, while the full version had the hero using what appears to be ice breath.  

 

I've also witnessed a supervillain boss fight, though not the slugfest I expected.  It was instead a high speed chase through the city, where apparently the hero's job is to use super flight to keep pace with a super speedster through all his twists and turns to ditch you.  Stay on top of the situation long enough, and you get close enough to 1-punch him.   An additional supervillain fight late in the video had the player tackling a giant robot that utilized tracking missiles.  

 

There was also an interesting bit where the player has to defuse a bomb in a precision mini-game.   It looks like new types of opportunities unlock as you advance in rank.  For example, I started seeing hostage rescue situations after he crossed level 20.  

 

In the secret-identity part of the game, players seem to be gravitating to picking Taxi Driver as their job choice in order to pick up some fast cash to hold home eviction at bay.  Taxi driving is a timed event, forcing the player to take great speed and crazy risks.  You can crash without loss, except the loss of valuable time, leading to a demolition derby that makes you wonder if you truly are a hero or perhaps a delusional villain.   This view is reinforced when you realize that in hero mode you can very, very easily tear through skyscrapers, apparently flinging whole floors of office interns to their deaths as the debris is sucked out of the building by the vortex in your wake.