Game Review: League of Legends

The epitome of e-sports and the pioneer of professional gaming. The game originated in 2008 developed by RIOT Games and based off the popular mod “DotA” (Defense of the Ancients) from WarCraft III. League of Legends is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game that setups a 5v5 competitive server where players are put into a team to destroy the enemy’s base specifically the fountain, the epitome of the base.  The game requires each player to select a set of champions with each champion being a certain type of role and all players must fulfil their role and coordinate with the team to achieve victory. Champions gain gold by last hitting creeps, destroying buildings and killing other player champions. These gold can be used to obtain different sets of items paramount to the victory of the team. Items can be offensive (Adding extra damage or attack speed), other items can be defensive (Armor and magic resistance) or miscellaneous.

The standard map of League splits off into 3 forks where there is a top, middle and bottom lane. Usually the top and middle lane will have 1 champion and the bottom lane will have 2.  The remaining champion will farm in the jungle which are situated near the team’s base.

                                                                      Standard Map 

              

League has a good selections of champions with new champions being released on a fortnightly basis. Players dub roles such as the:

-          “ADC” (Attack Damage Carry) which are  champions whom are extremely useful during the later phases of the game and must “carry” their responsibilities and team to win the game. An example of the ADC is the champion “Ashe”.

-          Supports, these type of champions are strong early (due to strong early abilities) in the game but lack late game presence because of their abilities and poor scaling of stats, their role in the game is to support the ADC so that the ADC can “farm” or easily attain gold more easier. Whilst their abilities may not output damage, their abilities will come with crowd control e.g. Stuns, silence and snares which helps the ADC kill champions quicker. E.g. Sona

-          Junglers, these role players at the start of the game will not go to a standard and lane and instead will being farming of jungle creeps as a means of getting gold and experience. Usually junglers are hidden in the fog of war and are used for assassinating targets and “ganking” targets when they least expect it. E.g. Udyr

-          AP champions – Magic-dealing based attacks, these champions output damage through the use of their abilities rather than their normal attacks and at some times can be extremely devastating because of specific combos. They can also be used for carrying teams. E.g. Brand

The gameplay of league can be considered very polished and well done, the mechanics of the game are extremely beginner friendly and the user interface are easy on new players who want to jump on a game straight away. Players can easily invite friends over to have a fun 5v5 games together.  The graphics are very cartoonish so it is very suitable for the young ages to play league. There are over 100 champions to play from which is a very wide pool for many players to choose from. However, a negative side of it is that there are champion rotations every week that players can only play before they have to try out different champions for another week. If a player permanently wants to unlock a champion, they may have to spend IP (Influential Points) which is the currency for LoL or RP (Riot Points) the micro-transactional currency that players spend real life money for. The cost of getting a champion (especially a good one) can cost a lot of IP (6300 IP for the expensive champions). Most games if won give between 50 – 100IP so it is time consuming to unlock all the champions.

There are also different modes of gameplay, dominion is the game where players take control of strategic towers around the map, the more strategic towers controlled, the more points that add up for the team, the team with the most points wins the game so it adds a nice balance of offense and defense quickly on the run and force players to quickly make decisions. Another game mode "All random, all mid" randoms champions for users and are all put onto a small battlefield where it becomes a massive onslaught onto 1 lane. While these game modes are limited, it still provides a diverse experience for players instead of having to play on the same map over again. However, I think League should adopt user made content (maps and mods) into the game to make a more enriching experience.

          Dominion Map                

                

                                                              All Random All Mid           

Over my time of playing of playing, there has been criticism drawn to LoL for being one of the most toxic communities with players immediately reporting teammates if they don’t comply to their demands or use online threats and abuse. Most games aren’t like this, occasionally happening every few games but a user should not experience any form of abuse, racism, threats from any players as it degrades gaming experiences and other players may copy bad habits into their game.

The graphics may not be top-tier compared to other games but has polished cartoonish graphics, well light area and great attention to detail of tiny particles and rendered models. At the same time, there is simplicity within the graphics which makes spotting and scanning areas and champions very easy. There are announcements for when players attain a kill streak or even for when a building is being attacked to easily remind players of their objectives.

There is a reason for why League of Legends has over 1 million players, while it may not be the best polished game, it offers excellent gameplay with a wide variety of different champions that users can choose from, easy for new users to use the interface and more importantly, it’s a free game downloadable straight from the website. So I definitely recommend you to give it a try!