Riot games official website reads:
League of legend’s subscriber base touching 5 million players worldwide at peak hours.
So Instead of a slandered F2P review now would be a great time to look at a sort of retroperspective of the game along with comments on the game itself.
Beginnings
League of legends (Lol) had humble beginnings, its goal was simple, make a more polished version of dota that is more accessible to the new players and simplify some of the mechanics, to make it more accessible and user friendly. To which it succeeded it, massively, becoming the behemoth that we know today it. But with the 3rd season (read 3rd year) starting for the competitive hungry MOBA, Weather you are new to the genre or a veteran at some other strategy/action games now would be a good time to look at if after years of refinement and updates (of which there have been many) is it worth your time. So if anyone is interested in jumping on the bandwagon, this article should help you out as we will also discuss if the game is newbie friendly.
Gameplay
It’s a MOBA (More info) and follows the similar gameplay types of pvp with 5v5, 3v3. Adding to the genre its own version of capture the flag (called Dominion). You control a single character on a battlefield and controls his 3-8 abilities and 2 additional skills you can choose from the metagame for any of your champion. Controls are Simple to understand and master the challenge come from the need to coordinate. For the timing of each ability can be the difference in life and death. But when huge 5v5 battles start and the spell and attacks fill the screen even the most patient of gamers are tested to not just spam any skill they can get their hands to rather think and adapt strategically. It’s all chaotic fun. There are also other games modes besides moba like dominion or my favorite Proving grounds ARAM (An All random 5v5 single lane match with no recall and restricted shopping rules), while you may not find this in the regular mode be sure to check out the custom games menu for the extra community creativity.
Graphics
The game uses colourful cartoon like graphics and it has given them freedom on this account for creation of many colourful champions. Of which there is a huge variety, the game is not shy on blood or fan service either. Making it something you can show your family and friends with equal enthusiasm. The Spell effect are unique and never distract from what going on the screen whereas also proving enough feedback for the skills effect and damage along with some nice eye candy. The game’s custom engine is extremely scalable with the game running super smooth on most systems with any form of graphic card.
Music
The overall game music is something that never distracts it from the gameplay and is enjoyable to listen to with some great themes songs over at their soundcloud channel. Where the audio really shines is the unique audio spell effect, providing good sense of impact and power.
Here is an example of their Champion theme song for Vi
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/71888505″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Is it noob Friendly?
Game yes, community No. When you play PvP people expect you know what you are doing. They have 10 free champions each week so those who just pick up the game always have something to play with, but there are 111 champions (as of this writhing) to play and learn the skill, This is where the difficulty in the game comes from. To know the role of each champion and their skills. Riot does try to ease the skills by releasing spotlight videos on new champs but the main noob friendly nature of the game comes from the Vs. AI feature and the 2 tutorial’s games where the game pauses to explain itself, correct you and basically hand hold you throughout the game. It also has a metagame where you are a summoner and you can level to 30 learning the ropes and playing with people of similar skill and level.
The game has strict focus on good player behaviour. Rewarding for good sportsmanship and punishing for fouling the game with warnings, temporary and permanent bans, but the community does shout and is known for being toxic in most completive games so be vary of hearing various colourful people along the way.
Free 2 Play
The game is free to play and with no entry barrier, you just choose a server (I recommend EU west for a good ping in India) and create an account and you are in. The games makes its money from selling skins, hats and sunglasses and some theme/season based costumes for champions adding a slight personalization touch. Also you can buy experience boost and in game points boost. These in-game points are the currency to buy new heroes and game starting loadouts. Yes, champions are available for real money, hence you can buy a lot of champions with real money but that does not give you a significant advantage because it all comes down to skill. You also get some match points per game and can use it to get a champion you want to play permanently. Some are really cheap whereas the latest releases are expensive.
It’s been 3 years and one of the most notable feature of Riot games has been their ability to changeup the game. We also have a constant barrage of new heroes to master and once an oddball they throw in a feature like completely new game modes and features. Although you may find a lot of anger on the fact that you lost that makes working for a victory all the more worthwhile.
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If you are further interested here are a few links to get you started.
Leaguecraft
Champion Spotlight on Youtube
Reddit
Twitter
Facebook
Soundcloud
