In preparation for this review, I pushed my new character in Champions Online to level 20 as quick as I could. It's something I never do, but I had to get to the level that would unlock my Nemesis.

Little did I know that unlocking your Nemesis happened at level 25!

Still, I found myself excited about the next level, more so in this game in others. But although it took me a while to put a finger on it, that might have been because the levels move so fast that the game can sometimes feel like a FPS or a quick adventure game that has you rushing through progressively cooler content. However, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me give you a quick overview of the game.

Champions allows you to make a superhero with almost any look and almost any set of powers, giving you the ability to pick and choose from all power sets at any time, compared to City of Heroes and it's much more limited selections. I have had a comic book character for years, one dating all the way back to my teens, and I was able to recreate him accurately thanks to the countless choices.

You do missions and get XP like any other MMO, but when you level, you can pick out a new power or additional characteristic. In addition, at level 25 you get to make your own arch-nemesis that will actually show up in game and challenge you!

You can pick out his or her minions, their abilities, and their look as well. Its mind boggling, really, the amount of customization you can do. It's a wonder that players show up with their own take on The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman when they have an entire box of customization options to choose from! Perhaps they have always dreamed of playing as their favorite super-hero, but I myself would always want to make something uniquely mine if given the choice.

The biggest issue with Champions is that once you make your character, the rest of the game consists mostly of combat and a small amount of crafting. Granted, the quests you are asked to do hold a lot of variety and have enough sense of humor to make you smile, but I would love it if occasionally my character would have a challenge, something that would push him or her to the edge, something dangerous. Generally, though, the levels sail by you.

The game's graphical details can be overwhelming at first, and I had to turn off many of the fancy effects just to get the game to look good. The game would choke a lower-end PC down fast, but most new gaming PC's will be OK. Again, though, you might wonder why the game looks so bad even at max settings. Once you get used to it you realize that it doesn't look bad, just over-stylized. Turn off half of the effects and you've got a great looking game.

Yes, the game is a Hell of a lot of fun. Combat feels fast and snappy most of the time, when not clogged up by one of the numerous odd little bugs floating around the game, you do really feel mighty. I wonder, though, if most gamers would run out of missions within the first month. After that, what would they do? Cryptic has not yet added bases or playable villains yet, so I can see someone playing this game and burning through it very quickly that the game could get pretty old pretty quick.

Of course, if you are disabled, you might not have any love for this game at all.

Color blind players might wish that green was not, still, such a central color for certain information. Where is the toggle? Where is the choice to change colors? It's ironic that a game with so much customization would miss the ability for a color-blind player to change a few basic things.

Hard of hearing/deaf players should be OK, most quests being in text form. In fact, there is a lot for a hard of hearing player to read, being that are flyers/posters/markers spread throughout the game that hand out points for learning the lore of the land. There are a few sounds that signal something happening, but they are rare.

The real issues come for those that have limited control over their mouse or keyboard. You really need both to play this game. The biggest example would be travel powers like flight or teleport that need you to hold down several buttons sometimes.

My character, for example, uses teleport. I can hold down right and left click to move forward, but I have to hit the letter T to go back into teleport mode every few seconds. If you are flying and need to fight, throw in more fingers needed to push buttons.

Of course, you could use speed or just foot it around, and the game does have a great targeting system that does a lot of the work for you, but the game is built for going everywhere, not just in a straight line.

In a connected example, I asked in general chat if anyone knew what setting might allow for click-to-move. I figured a player could zoom out, click to move and the nice targeting combat system would do the rest. Most of the chatters thought I was referring to holding down right and left click, but one player said that click-to-move "....died off in the '90's." I corrected him, of course, and told him that click to move was actually the most popular form of control in the world.

However, in talking to the crowd it only reminded me of how disabled players are not forgotten about, they are never thought about in the first place. It was sad not to have one player seem to understand that disabled players actually exist. Moreover, while I am not faulting Cryptic for making a fantastic game that requires a certain level of control; I am faulting them for, seemingly, not considering disabled players at all in many areas.

Granted, there are fantastic key-binding choices, but let's be honest here and note that most modern MMO's should and do have these key-binding choices.

After all, we are not talking about a few dozen potential players with control issues. We are talking thousands and thousands.

So, is Champions Online fun? Yes. Is it very disabled friendly? No. This saddens me, being that so much of the game took obviously bright designers to design. No one can convince me that the game could not have been made more accessible.