DCUO continues to be on my short of list heavily anticipated titles right up there with Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Onelastcontinue had an opportunity to talk to Wes Yanagi, Senior Producer at Sony Online Entertaintment at Gamescom 2009, go hands on with the game, and came away impressed despite the game still being in pre-alpha. Wes revealed several details on gameplay, character creation, and one big suprise: no subscription fee.

From an interaction perspective, Yanagi stated he wanted it to be more action based in the vein of God of War than World of Warcraft. Character configuration continues to gain detail, but at the same time being true to the world of comics in regards to how abilities are represented. In building your character, you have 3 main areas to customize:

• Power: This defines your character’s main power. Ashram learned mimic skills like Connor Hawke, or telepathy like Saturn Girl?
• Source: This defines the source of your characters powers.  Magic based like Captain Marvel or hell based like Jason Blood?
• Movement Power: This defines your primary movement.  Prefer to mainline the speed force like Wally West or have fly like Captain Atom?

A few other interesting details from their interview and impressions:

• You have to prove your worth before your recruited by a group (such as the Justice League)
• The ability to map your buttons to a DualShock 3 or to a USB Keyboard
• Open platform servers for cross-compatibility  between the PS3 and PC versions

As impressive as no subscription fee’s is, open platform servers is equally as impressive. To be able to play with or against people on either PC or PS3 could create quite an expansive world. Further to play your created character on either a PC or PS3 would be nice when the PS3 is not accessible.

Initially I thought it would be fun to join The Legion of Doom, and take on the Justice League. But to strike the Last Son of Krypton, to attack Earth’s greatest hero, no…I could not do that.