Infinite Crisis First Impression
Infinite Crisis is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) currently in beta and allows the use of a select number of characters from the DC Universe. I’ve been playing the closed beta for some time and my first impression of it is very positive and I’ve been having fun with it. In case you missed the announcement of this game the premise is the DC multiverse is threatened with utter destruction and so superheroes and villains alike team up to prevent this from occurring. So a variation of Batman and Joker could be on the same team fighting against Cyborg and Doomsday. That’s possible because those are the characters selected by the players of course but story wise it works because it’s dealing with DC’s multiverse. It’s a closed beta and there are stress tests and other events to see how the servers hold up but fortunately I’ve been able to play at any time and I’ve never had any issue connecting with the server.
The very first time I logged in I was given options for difficulty based on my experience with MOBAs. The choices were for one who doesn’t know anything about MOBAs, one who has previous experience but very rusty and one who is very good. I initially selected rusty so I could see more of what was stated by Turbine about how this game would be enjoyable even for inexperienced MOBA players. I highly recommend choosing the option of not knowing anything because the additional time spent will be more than worth it once you get into the gameplay.
The beta has some characters available for play for free while others can be purchased in the store using the credits the game gives to you. There are also a select number of character skins available as well. (Although I haven’t experience long delays in finding and joining a match it’s still not worth mentioning in detail here since it’s still in beta.) The matches consist of two teams of 5 and no team can have the same character. Aside from the abilities specific to each character you can select 2 stolen powers, which are basically additional abilities that aren’t character specific such as faster movement for a period of time when activated. Each character has suggested roles so some have more attack damage, more health or more power to use abilities. And there is a real difference and from my time playing with different characters I’ve had different results when I’ve tried to use the same style of gameplay. So Green Lantern felt much different from Cyborg and I found that the variation in attack strength could be significant.
When the match starts you’re given a period of time to use the initial skill points and prepare for battle. The skill points are used to activate and then upgrade your abilities during the match and you earn more as you level up. You also earn credits over time from your base or you can collect them by defeating opponents or drones. One of the keys to a successful match besides teamwork is the in-game upgrades. There is a completely separate leveling up system in-game than there is outside of the match. And there’s a cooldown period for each ability depending on the level. In the beta the max for an ability is level 4 in each match in my experience.
Aside from the skill points that level up your abilities there’s an Artifact Foundry that you can open up to spend your credits earned during game play. The game makes a recommendation for you and you can just click on it to spend credits without having to open another screen however I found it more beneficial to manually choose the artifacts. Sometimes the recommendations just increase the attack strength and nothing else leaving your character unbalanced. Another reason it’s better to manually choose the artifacts is you only have 6 slots to use and once you fill all 6 you can only upgrade them. You can also sell them to open up a slot and get some credits back as well. After I learned how to use the different artifacts better I enjoyed the game play more because instead of being a statistic for another player I was able to drastically improve my K/D ratio. And you can only make these changes at your base or while respawning.
The objective of each match is to reduce the opposing team’s base health to 0 by capturing control points and holding them or by defeating the opposing team’s players. The map in the beta is Gotham Heights and there are 5 control points. Once your team captures a control point defenses are activated and will be active as long as a player on your team remains near it. You also have drones and even though they’re nowhere near as strong as other players they can still be helpful and destroying opposing drones gives you more credit and helps you level up faster. I found the actual game play mechanics to be responsive and for those not used to MOBAs it can take some time to adjust to all the activity on the screen at times but it’s been a lot of fun. The default is the left click to move and attack and Q,W,E,R,D and F are for abilities and I didn’t have any problems with the default. I did find some of the characters to be alot more effective than others but the in-game Artifact Foundry does help with balancing. The environment is destructible as advertised and massive. The initial matches were rough due to a lack of experience but once I got the hang of it I found it difficult to stop.
I was impressed with Infinite Crisis and I not only intend to play the beta more until it’s released but play once the full game is released and can see myself playing it on a regular basis.
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