There are things I like very much about how Champions Online has handled character looks vs. City of Heroes. In the former latter, you basically buy a mono-expression mask for your character. In the latter former, you design your face, then you choose one of four or five expressions — Basic (neutral), Determined, Grim, Angry, or Pleasant (if I recall correctly — Courageous might be in there instead). These add scowls, smiles, eyebrow raising, etc. to the basic expression.
CO strikes me as a better way of doing things, in conjunction with the remarkable array of ways you can control how your head and face actually look. It’s not dynamic, but it’s, well, more organic.
Unfortunately, the results are less spectacular in at least one regard — lips. Or mouths. Or mouths with pouty lips. Which they all pretty much have. Even the guys. And which really stands out when there’s an overhead light source.
It may be the particular graphics tuning I have, but it’s darn annoying. They really need at least one, if not a couple of, mouth sliders in the face designer.
And then they need to come up with a way of making the emotion of the face — Grim, Angry, Pleasant, whatever — be dynamic, so that your character can look Pleasant while cheering, or after a mission, or when RPing, etc.
Now that would be pretty cool.
Methinks you have your former and latter mixed up. CoH is where the faces act like masks. CO allows the customization you describe.
Maybe you were adventuring in Canada? I know the cold weather up there makes my brain freeze and makes posting difficult.
Ummm…the faces all pretty much look the same to me in CoX 2, they are just slight veriations on a theme. Thin face, tall face, big face, wideface, small face, elf face, with a scowl pasted on top.
@Sphinx – You are correct. Actually, I was multitasking and lost track of my fingers (which is also dangerous to do during a blizzard in Canada).
@BD – I agree; the problem is not in the concept but the execution; what should be something that provides plenty of variation on the theme doesn’t. I still think it’s more elegant a solution (as a programmer) than covering a face with an “Angry Youth #5” mask.