Review—-League of Legends

The Defense of the Ancients is probably the most well known Warcraft scenario, making its debut in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.  Since that time, its popularity has skyrocketed and the game type is a well-known tournament game.  League of Legends is a game coming from the same team that put together DotA, now working with Riot Games to push it out.  While I haven’t had experience with the original game, I can safely say League of Legends has a lot to live up to.

Where to begin with this semi massive game?  League of Legends has a very basic backstory, which doesn’t come into play except for a character’s history.  I consider this to be a positive for the game.  It’s all about the multiplayer, so why drag a storyline into play?

Players fall into the role of a “Summoner” who summons a “Champion” onto the playing field.  Matches consist of such: The current maps are split into two sides for each team.  The first map, Summoner’s Rift, is similar to the DotA map of old.  There are three lanes connecting each base with statues that act as gun turrets through them.  Every few minutes, uncontrollable minions will spawn from the Nexus in each base, running down each lane and attacking everything in sight.  The little critters are surprisingly intelligent, reprioritizing based on threat levels.  Bases house inhibitors and Nexus points.  Destroying an inhibitor will begin spawning super minions in whatever lane, while the Nexus is what players must destroy to win a match.

A group of Champions try to take out one of the special monsters

Maps also have monsters scattered throughout that offer exp and gold to players that seek them out.  While not needed for level ups, a few quick monster fights can make the difference.  There are also a few that offer buffs for the champion, and at least two that act as major bosses requiring a team of champs to kill them.  Woe be to any solo player that walks into their lair.

Now to the controllable aspect of the game.  Players have two Summoner spells chosen before the match.  These affect the gameplay in certain ways, have no cost, but have cool down periods.  Exmaples of this being spells like Heal and Teleport.  Players will control the Champion of the Summoner.  Each champion functions differently, while falling into various archetypes such as DPS, Tank, and Caster.  Champions will level up during matches to a maximum level of 18, and champions can also equip items bought from the shop, and increase their abilities.  Each champ has five abilities: the first being a static ability that makes the champ unique, three others being various skills they have to use (such as fireballs, spinning slashes, and area of effect buffs), and the last being their ultimate.  As you can imagine, these can be rather ground breaking for characters.

The role of the champion in this game is to act as the heavy hitter for the minions.  Not to down the minions in the least, I love the little buggers, but the champions will be doing quite a bit of the work.  Minions serve as cannon fodder to track the rather deadly gun turrets away from the champion.  The statues hit fast and hard, felling an unwary champion in just a few moments.  The strongest two are located by the Nexus point however.  Not only is their attack power increased, but they regenerate health on a constant basis.

Note: I do not suggest messing with glowing yetis.

The champions are surprisingly distinct.  Each offers their own play style and items builds to with them, while some have multiple.  Maybe for one character you like to pump up their health and defense to compliment their high attack, or mayhap you just want to see them slaughter things even faster by booster their attack?  There are quite a few options and noteworthy selections.

Players also progress in Summoner levels, gained from experience in matches.  Players can also customize various ability trees based on offense, defense, and utility.  Abilities here will cut down on the cool down of summoner spells, offer certain stats to champions, and so forth.  There are also runes that players can equip, although these haven’t been implemented into the semi-beta version of the game right now.

League of Legends isn’t so much an RTS as it is closer to being an MMO, which isn’t a bad thing at all.  It’s a refreshing breath of air to RTS games in my opinion, skipping right to the part that most people enjoy: seeing the hero units cream each other.  In Riot Games opinion, there isn’t a best champion to go with.  From my experience, I am quite willing to agree.  Some may have an advantage over others, but there isn’t a penultimate choice.

The berserker Tryndamere locked in battle with the scarecrow Fiddlesticks

For having just started up, there is already a thriving community rallying under its banner.  The forums are riddled with discussions and strategies for newer players.  Riot Games is even trying to start a project called “From Minnows to Sharks.”  It requests that players that are veterans to DotA help out the newer players that are just coming in.  It seems to be working.  After a friendly heads up that I was new to the game, the players were willing to give me pointers and were quite friendly when it came to competition.  Banter was thrown back and forth, but at the end of the match, everyone left with a metaphorical smile on their face from the hectic and challenging match that was just played.

League of Legends is also COMPLETELY free for anyone wanting to play it.  The game will be supported by microtransactions and people that wish to purchase the collector’s edition.  While the game can be downloaded from the website, the collector’s edition offers it on disc form, along with some nice extras.  Once the launch party is over, buyers will already have 20 of the champions unlocked, along with a special skin for one of them.  Buyers also get a 10 doller pre-paid for once the store opens up.

Now that the game is out, a question come to mind on how much is Riot Games going to support their new baby?  Seems that they plan to heavily support it with new skins, maps, and champions planned to come out in a regular fashion.  For right now, the Riot Games store is closed, so who really knows how much everything will cost once it’s open.  However, the developers have promised that people that pay WILL NOT have an advantage over other players, other than the speed at which they acquire certain content.

Currently, it seems the game is going strong.  Games are plentiful and it’s easy to get into one with the max number of people in a few scant moments.  The people are nice, and the game play is surprisingly tight with so many units able to be on screen.  Riot games will soon start updating their site with new info, so keep it in your bookmarks.  I wholeheartedly stand behind this being an awesome game, therefore, League of Legends gets five out of five.

Tags: League of Legends PC rpg RTS Tyler R.