View From the Bushes

City of Heroes was released today. Yet another entry into the massively multiplayer arena. Though it is somewhat unique, it's not only the first superhero MMOG, it's quite possibly the first Superhero CRPG of any type. I have an evil co-worker who's been hyping it for awhile and he sparked enough interest on my part for me to check it out. It actually looks pretty cool, and as such has become one more enticement to compete for my limited amount of time. I haven't bought it yet and I'm thinking that even if I do break down, demonstrate my weakness and purchase it, that I'll probably wait a little bit until the release day rush dies down a little bit. That, or I may pick it up on my way home from work -- it's hard to say, I'm pretty spineless.

The game is set in Paragon City, which I guess is suppossed to be New York, I'm not entirely certain. But thinking about superheroes and New York reminded my of a story from when I was about four or five. See, my father had gotten a job offer in the Big Apple. Presumably he considered it seriously enough that he mentioned it to me. Obviously, like many children I had no desire to pack up and move thousands of miles to the other side of the country to some city I knew nothing about. In other words, I was not excited. I must have made my displeasure known because my Dad, in an attempt to cheer me up, mentioned that New York was where Spiderman lived.

Well, that changed things. I began to imagine myself riding along in the car looking out the window and seeing Spiderman swing by going from one skyscraper to the next. That seemed cool enough to offset the other trials of relocation. I'm not sure when (though I don't think it was very long) I realized that, yes, Spiderman did technically live in New York. It was a fictional New York, one I had almost no chance of actually moving to, but what my Dad had told me was technically true, even if it was border-line child abuse...

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Ross