A cast of thousands

If you like alts then City of Heroes is the game for you.

There's over a dozen different classes (or archetypes, as the game calls them) and each of those has the pick of six or more primary powersets and the same number of secondary powersets. So each class has dozens of possible combinations – over a thousand in total - and they all play differently.

It doesn't end there. CoH has a famously extensive character designer, and gives you full access to every aspect of your costume straight away. You don't have to wait to get gear you like the look of – your character can look exactly how you want them to at level 1.

You can also customise how your powers look – changing the colours, the particle efects and even some of the animations to your own preferences. Character creation is a game in itself in City of Heroes.

So it took me a while to decide what to go with. Seeing as this is the first character of this new era I've went with a Hero. When the game was live I'd levelled up a Mastermind and a Scrapper – two very powerful soloing archetypes – to 50, so for now I've picked a different archetype.

So here goes with Time Raider, a Time Manipulation/Dual Pistols Defender. Any resemblance to a certain 90s videogame heroine is purely coincidental.

Actually, joking aside, I do tend to avoid direct rip-offs of existing characters. I'll readily take some inspiration from a film/book/comic/game but that's as far as I go.