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Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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Apply now for City of Heroes Euro beta places

In line with recent feedback, this item is devoid of Smallville references. We torched 'em all. Ulp.

As regular visitors to the site well know, we hold City of Heroes in high regard. High enough for the inimitable Kieron Gillen to call it "focussed excellence" in his 9/10 review of the US version. And although we imagine many of you have already been bitten by the superhero bug and saved the world countless times after buying it and downloading it online, we have a feeling that news that NCsoft Europe is accepting applications for a European beta will still be well received.

Starting today, eager parties can point their browsers at the official website, where they'll be able to apply and hopefully get on board with the game ahead of its European release in February next year. As for the benefits, we'll turn over to content and community manager Stephen Reid: "We're looking for beta testers from all across Europe to test City of Heroes' new fully localised content, stamp out any bugs and have a blast playing a fantastic game. We even have a few special surprises lined up," he said, before pointing his arms skyward and hurtling into the clouds.

So get going. And try not to use your powers for evil.