League of legends review

Riot Games, LoL's developer, claims more than 12 million players log on every day, with peak concurrent global numbers reaching five million. The game boasts over 70 million registered players, 32 million of which are active every month. By hours, it's the most played video game in the world. Those are staggering figures that World of Warcraft could only hope to catch. 

In my opinion here are 3 main differences between lol and dota 2:

1)   You have access to a limited rotation of heroes in LoL. The game lets you save in-game rewards to purchase a hero for permanent access, or you can purchase it instantly with real-world currency. On the other hand, Dota 2 gives all players free access to all heroes.

2)   LoL does not allow players to destroy their own assets. Dota 2 does let you wreck your own towers and structures to deny enemies gold rewards.

3)    When a player is killed in LoL, they lose only experience. In Dota 2, the killed player loses gold and experience.

Overview

League of Legends falls into the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre, with MOBA being a term coined by Riot Games in order to break away from its DotA (Defense of the Ancients) roots. The MOBA genre is a sub-category of the Real-Time Strategy genre in which each player controls one character only. This character is called a champion in League of Legends, but could be called something else depending on which game you are playing. Creeps, or minions, are computer controlled characters that follow a very basic movement pattern and perform simple, predictable actions. Other computer controlled characters are called monsters, but they are neutral.Late in the game, the powerful Baron Nashor, the most powerful neutral in the game serves as a cold war catalyst. You seek to kill him for the enormous stat boosts he grants and gold.

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The object of a MOBA game - and League of Legends as well, obviously - is to destroy the other team's base, or Nexus, if League terminology is to be used. There are three paths, called lanes, that extend from each team's base. These lanes are referred to by the player base as "top," "mid," and "bot." Three turrets act as sentinels in each lane, followed by two turrets that guard the Nexus. Champions in each lane are trying to shove down the turrets, last hit (deal the finishing blow on) minions to farm gold, and push their lane into the Nexus.

Roles:

Oh, but it's so much more complicated than it seems. In the classic game mode, there are five players on each team. New players will often pick whichever character they feel like playing at the given time, but in a real game each player takes a position. The positions are "top laner," "mid laner," "AD carry," "support," and "jungler." The top laner, as the name suggests, goes to the top lane and is typically a tanky champion or a bruiser. Because they are isolated from the rest of the map, playing top lane requires a lot of individual skill and matchup knowledge. The mid laner, also as the name suggests, goes to the mid lane and is usually an AD (Attack Damage) or AP (Ability Power) caster. Both the AD carry and support go to the bot lane. AD carry champions usually require a lot of expensive items to be effective, so the AD carry takes all the minion kills. The support laner is the utility player of the bunch; support players need to control vision of the map through the placing of friendly wards (consumable items which give vision of a small area for a few minutes) and the removal of enemy wards. The support has many more responsibilities, but they are beyond the scope of this review.

The jungler role gets a paragraph to itself. The jungler navigates the areas between the lanes (the jungle). Because there is no clear objective for the jungler like there are for the laners - they just destroy towers - it can be a difficult position to pick up. Junglers spend most of their time purging the jungle of monster camps, only coming out to "gank" (ambush) a lane. Because of the early game difficulty involved in defeating monsters, most champions are not capable junglers until you are an experienced player.

Characters:

League of Legends has more than 100 champions to choose from. One would have to play hundreds if not thousands of games to master a single champion, and no two champions are the same. Some characters may have similarities with others, but each is unique and plays differently than any other. Gameplay isn't the only thing unique about each character, though. From Blitzcrank, a yellow steam golem, to Twitch, a giant rat, Riot has a creatively designed character for everyone.

Each character has four skills that are assigned to the Q, W, E, and R keys. Each champion is different, but Q and W tend to be damage skills, while E is a utility skill. R is an "ultimate:" a champion's most powerful skill that typically has a long cooldown.

Most characters are designed by Riot with a specific role in mind for them to play, but often times these characters will end up being useful in other ways. For example, many bruisers and tanks are designed as top laners, but do well in the jungle also (and vice versa). A support character may even end up being a suitable mid. This may not always be the case, though. Study up on a character before using them in a game for ideal performance.

Items:

On top of a huge lineup of champions, items and item builds create even more diversity in each game. A lot of players will say that DotA 2 has a larger, better, more diverse set of items, but a) I'm reviewing the game League of Legends, not DotA 2 and b) that is subjective information from a biased crowd. Some characters can run crazy item builds and be successful, while others, such as AD carries, tend to have one or two builds that are optimal. The item system could probably stand to include more items, but it gets the job done well and is by no means an issue.

STORY :

I would be a liar if I said League of Legends had a story, because it certainly doesn't. I'm completely okay with that, though. I feel like eSports as a whole have advanced because of this decision (to keep story elements to a minimum) and other small ones like it; League is really the first game that I think has a chance to make eSports appeal to a larger crowd.

Graphics and sound:

 League of Legends gets ripped by some players for being too cartoony and unimpressive. Instead of going for the flashiest, most modern looking graphics they could create, Riot chose the timeless approach. They chose a cartoon style that will age well - that is key to longevity in a game.

As for the sound, it's just fine. There are no legendary musical arrangements to be found, but the noises created by the game are not obnoxious (this is a very good thing, since you hear them every game). Each character has its own set of voice-overs, and most every skill has its own sound effects. Nothing to complain about here.

 DEVELOPERS :

When it comes to online games that are constantly being patched up with hotfixes and large updates alike, the developers play a large part in the success of a game even after release. In my eyes, a developer must have a good relationship with its player base, must be open to the needs (or demands) of its player base, and must be quick to the rescue when there is a problem. Riot Games has a history of both pleasing the crowd and doing what's best for the game. Granted, I don't always agree with some of their decisions when it comes to nerfing champions, but that's a minor thing. The end result is usually for the better.

Comunity:

This has been the driving point behind all of the low scoring reviews you see on gameFAQs, and for good reason. The League community, for the most part, is awful. You will get flamed for doing poorly in a game. Hard. However, judging a game based off of its community is hardly fair, especially for a game of this size.

Here is a short preview of the game. It is old and the game had a lot of updates since this video was made but the basics are the same: