At this year's E3, Sony Online Entertainment's DC Universe Online revealed the most important part of its superhero arsenal: weight. Lag-buffered and saddled with simplified combat animations, many MMOs are lacking any tangible sense of physicality, numbers and stats taking the place of proper hit responses, while convenient magic effects cover up the worst of the collision detection crimes with a blur of fizzing particles.
In the last few months, however, DCUO has picked up a real sense of heft, its bulky heroes thudding over the ground, freight-training into their enemies, and sending all manner of physics objects tumbling heavily through the air. It's a solid, eminently thumpable world that SOE Austin has built: a playground designed to withstand its super-strength occupants, and a setting that suggests the team's aim to make an MMO that truly feels like an action game may be entirely within reach.
