League Of Legends

League Of Legends is mixture of real time strategy with the fast pace, fast acting game type of FPS (First Person Shooter).

Games, Games, and more Games

Is that what most of us computer users think about, games? Well to tell you the truth, YES, that is all I think about playing on my computer. Of course I can browse the web, make my own movies, do some form of typing, or do some overclocking. The main purpose of this machine is to play games. The need to mutilate, mame, destroy, and crush, my opponents on some unknown digital battlefield is the sole purpose of my computer. Which brings me to the real reason for this review, to give you readers an idea about a new game called League Of Legends.

This game is based off of the ever popular World Of Warcraft III modification, Defense of the Ancients (DotA). I never really cared for the “Strategy” based games, so when I first heard about League Of Legends, I thought, ” Great, just another one of them strategy games “. Then I found out this was an online type of game, again thinking to myself, “Just great, to make matters even worse, they go ahead and make it online based….”

Needless to say, I could not be farther from the truth concerning League Of Legends. This game is not your typical ” lets make units and then send them off to go fight while I try and make even more units, so I can possibly win this round “. This game is more focused on a single unit and upgrading that single units abilities, just like DotA.

Now that I’ve layed down what type of game League of Lengends is, it’s time to throw in League Of Legends in “Mini Me”, lets get ready for battle.

Game Time

The images shown in this review are in no particular order. These are only here to give an idea what this game looks like fully maxed out.

This game is extremely fast paced, there is so much that can be done, it is hard to even list everything possible. I will try and keep it short as possible.

The installation of League Of Legends goes by fairly quick so you wont have to wait very long. After installation, we started up the game, low and behold it is update time. If you have a slow connection then this is going to take a while. Nothing to be overly concerned with as most online only games have patches. After League Of Legends updated, we couldn’t hold our enthusiasm to play. Lets hope you made your new account during the update process, if not (like me), you will have to make one.

After we got our accounts set up, we were finally able to play. The first thing you will notice about League of Legions is the login screen. You will get a window that sits in the center of our screen asking you to sign in, after signing in, we get into another window that asks what do we want to do. This is more of an annoyance with the sign in portion, League Of Legends does not remember your sign in name, everytime you close out the game and start it up again you have to resign in everytime. Do we wish to visit the store (I will cover this in a bit) or play a game, Keep in mind that we are still using a small window inside of our desktop, there is a configuration button to the far left hand corner, but we do not have any real adjustments concerning our visual settings. So instead of being able to set this window to full screen, I clicked the play button, now my screen goes to full screen mode, at first I am sent to a training area, this will give me the basic fundamentals of this game and how to play it. After training area, I am taken to another screen asking me to choose, either play Bot mode or play in Solo or in Team Mode, the Solo or team mode are randomly picked I did not see an actual server listing, so I went into the Bot server, and this allows me to choose a server i wish to play in. In Bot mode, I still play with actual players but while using Bot mode, if players drop out, the computer puts in Bots to take their place to keep the teams even. We are whisked away to another screen where we choose our champion, the type of basic spells we want for our champion. Everytime you enter a new game your Champion is resetted to 0 and all of the skills and or items you purchased (NPC store look below for actual Store information) are gone.

Game Play is cross between Overlord, with a little bit of FPS, while at the same time give the players World Of Warcraft spells and capabilities. which makes this a very interesting game play, you start off with a champion that has the bare minimum, during the match, you can purchase hardware, loot it, or earn cash to purchase items, the unique way the League Of legends handles the cash portion is that while you just sit there you get cash. So whether you fighting or just standing around you are earning money. You will earn money faster by fighting though. The items you can buy at the in game NPC store (not associated with the first store you see when you start up) range from ammo to weapons and everything in between, League Of Legends also gives you helpful tips on specific items your champion requires. You head out for battle, at first you only have your Champion, no minions just yet (better known as cannon fodder), the whole point of this game is to take out the opposing forces Nexus, but we cant just go to there spawn area and take it out we have to destroy turrets minion spawners and then on top of all that fight the enemies minions and there champions, during this time. After a few minutes we get our minions to be our cannon fodder, while we indirectly get involved into the battle. The Minions re-spawn very quickly after they die, we do not need to summon them, conjure any special spells, after they spawn they attack anything you tell them too, and keep re-attacking that item until you either die, or until you tell them to do something else.

At certain times as you get experience we can upgrade our Champions base skills (these also get resetted every time a new game is started, I kinda like this myself), giving our champions even more power to take down our enemies. But your self you gain levels as you play League Of Legends, as you gain experience points you then get leveled up, after you have leveled up you can spend your points in upgrading specific attributes that pertain to you. These special attributes will never get resetted, only your chamion abilities get resetted. It sounds a bit confusing at first, but in reality League Of Legends is real easy to play. The simplicity of this bgame makes it easy enough for just about anyone to play, but challenging enough for the most hardcore player types.

The Store you can visit after we start up the game (double clicked the desktop icon), this is for when you want to buy champions, or other items. At first I did not care to much about this idea, but after a few minutes I realized that League Of Legends uses fighting points and or point system, both of which can be used to purchase new Champions, if you have extra cash and you want the newer coolest Champion you can purchase in game points then, or you can just play League Of Legends and gain fighting points (from skirmishes) and use these fighting points to purchase newer Champions. Of coarse their will be some items that are cash only, but you can play this game with out ever spending any real cash outside the initial purchasing of this game, so its a best of both worlds.

Conclusions

I actually enjoyed playing League Of Legends, this game is fast paced, and keeps you on your toes at all times. As I mentioned earlier, this is not your A typical strategy, online game. From the minute you start the game to the minute you finish, you are constantly thinking and or reacting under fire.

Like all games there are some bad points, League Of Legends bad points are more of an annoyance (as annoyances go, these will vary from person to person) then actually bad points. One of these is the no graphics settings, I can’t adjust the in game graphics settings so I don’t know if I am at my max resolution or if i am using a lower res or if the game is truly fully decked out. Not starting up at full screen the minute we start the game, is a slight annoyance (of coarse I am nit picking), Bot mode gaming gives us a server listing, but whats the point of listing servers if everyone is locking the server, the locking of servers should be limited to actual matches or skirmishes, nothings more annoying then tring to find a server that is open, because idiots have to lock their server. How can one get to know people if certain people are so blinded to the outside world they could not find their own way out of their front door if their life depended on it (if you fall under this category then if the shoe fits wear it, if not then take it with stride). Last but least is the actual server for non bot matching, is a random server pick (MW2 basically), but again we can invite our own friends over to a server we set up, so this does offset this a little bit. Spawn time of the Champion if he/she was killed took way to long, a shorter spawn time would be better and keep game play at its maximum enjoyment.

I want to reinterate that the bad points are more a person to person variation then it is actual bad points. I absolutely loved playing this game, it is easy enough to understand to learn, and fast paced enough to keep you on your toes through out an entire map. When I played League Of Legends the matches would last anywhere from 30 minutes to almost 2.5 hours. it greatly depends on who is on the opposing team and how well they played.