After all, one can only resist so long. I officially became a MMORPG’er last night, having received my beta client for City of Heroes. Already I love it.

You get to survey the area from rooftops, leap down on criminals and save the innocent, all while the mega-powered fly overhead and deal with cosmic threats. The world is immersive and smoothly executed, so much so that you find yourself speaking “in character” a lot of the time.

“hey” becomes “greetings”, “dude, on the right” becomes “hostiles at 3 o’clock”, etc. At least for me. The wide variety of characters is almost astounding but then you see Silver Paladin, Nurse Notorious or Mighty Kid murmur “I o\/\/nz j00!” and you remember where you are. Still, fun.

Most-Honoured Girlfriend, luckily, is also interested in it. She is nervous that I’ll be so engrossed that she will only be able to communicate with me through her superheroine avatar in the game. At some point, she will have to come to grips with my double life in a three-part series where I must choose between her and rescuing 300 hostages from the terrorist controlled cineplex. In part two, we make love. I’m looking forward to that.