Turn off the Lights

Can’t Wait for DC Universe Online? Try These Games

It’s a little over a week before DC Universe Online hits store shelves.  Are you dying to create your own online Green Lantern, or Batlad, but just can’t wait for the game to come out?  Well, here are a few other super-powered titles for you to focus your super impatience on until DCU’s drop date of January 11th.

Champions Online
While this super-powered MMORPG is based on a super-hero pen & paper RPG instead of a comic book, it’s still a worthwhile endeavor for comics nerds.  It has more button-pounding action that the typical MMO, and offers stylistic visuals.  It’s going free to play in a few months, but it currently has a lengthy demo which should tide you over until DCU is out.  Check out our recent interview with Champions' Executive Producer if you want to see more about it.

City of Heroes

CoH is likely to be DCU Online's biggest competitor, and it probably isn’t going Free-To-Play any time soon, but it does have a free 7 day trial (No credit card required).  It’s been around for over six years, which means it has more content than you possibly grow bored of in a mere seven days.  While you can’t make a character who violates DC trademarks, you do have virtually limitless choices in terms of your appearance and powers, so making a guy who’s a lot like Green Lantern won’t be a problem.


Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Yes, it’s Marvel, and not DC, but enough with all that Marvel VS DC nonsense.  They both make fine comics, so deal with it.  Even though Ultimate Alliance is a console port, it is still one terrific game, and you get to play as Captain America.  The PC version has many mods available online that let you add in characters from previous Marvel beat-em-ups like X-Men Legends.  There’s no free trial, but it’s an absolute must buy for us comic book dorks.

Freedom Force
So, you like to make superheroes, and punch doers of evil on your computer?  This franchise puts you in charge of a team of silver-age heroes and has you punch your way through every comic book cliché you can think of.  Best of all, you can create your own character, and there are plenty of un-official mods to plug in your favorite DC character.   There’s a sequel as well called Freedom Force VS The Third Reich which continues the fun if you enjoy the first.  While you can’t get them for free, they are very cheap nowadays on digital distributors.  If you’re still not convinced to try Freedom Force, remember this, it was made by Irrational Games who later gave us Bioshock


Batman Arkham Asylum

So, you want to pretend that you’re a DC Comics hero?  There is no better game based on a DC franchise than Batman Arkham Asylum.  There is plenty of praise going around the internet for this game, so I won’t bother with my two cents.  However I will point out that the PC version also lets you add in mods for different batsuits, including far-out concepts like Green Lantern Batman.


We’ll have our review later this month after DCU: Online comes out, but to get your juices flowing, here’s that awesome opening cinematic for DCU: Online again.

 

Comments

Meet the Author

About / Bio
I am the Co-Founder and CTO of Entertainment Fuse. Thank you for viewing my profile. If you have any questions, comments or if you found any bugs with the website, contact me anytime. I love chatting with our community!

Follow Us