League Of Legends LOL Review
League of legends is a free-to-play real-time strategy MMO. Developed by members of the original game, Defence of the Ancients (DotA Allstars), is this game worthy of joining the legends? Or should it have remained in the ancients?
Even Hatsune Miku is in the League!
Story
The story takes place in the land of Runeterra. Following the aftermath of the 3rd Rune War, natural disasters and mysteries of magic began to make life difficult. Realizing that a 4th Rune War would destroy the land, Runeterra�s most powerful summoners and magic magicians gathered together to create the League of Legends. This organization would regulate the use of magic over Runeterra as well as provide a �Field of Justice� where representing teams of the nations of Runeterra would settle disputes or conflicts.
Basically, just imagine that there was no United Nations, and after three nuclear wars, everyone realized that a 4th nuclear war would end all life on Earth, thus the United Nations was created.
The overall story and background of characters and overall lore of League of Legends is often anime clich� and ignorable, buuuut since the story is none-existent in the actual game itself and has no impact whatsoever; there shall be no score for this!
Basically, just imagine that there was no United Nations, and after three nuclear wars, everyone realized that a 4th nuclear war would end all life on Earth, thus the United Nations was created.
The overall story and background of characters and overall lore of League of Legends is often anime clich� and ignorable, buuuut since the story is none-existent in the actual game itself and has no impact whatsoever; there shall be no score for this!
Shop screen where you ponder what to buy with what little money you have
Design
First let�s talk about the main menu screen. Riot IS a business after all and so, unlike Dota, you won�t be able to play all 82 champions right after bat. Instead Riot goes through a champion rotation every week, selecting 10 champions from the roster for you to play and try out in games. If you want to play a champion outside of the free week, you�ll have to purchase the champion from the store (picture above) with Influence Points (IP) that you can earn in game, or spend real money to get Riot Points (RP). IP can be earned through playing games. The longer the games, the more points you earn. Wins net you more points and every 24h, your first win of the day earns you a bonus +150 IP, motivating you to play at least once a day. Simple right? Buying champions is not the only thing you can buy from the store with your hard earned IP. Runes can be bought and used in your rune pages to allow you to start out with a small advantage over others. In addition to runes, there are also mastery pages that can buff your abilities. You spend points in, offense, defence, or utility skill trees, each depending on how much you want to spend an emphasis on. You gain levels by playing games and each additional level grants you an extra point to spend in the mastery page with a level cap of 30, which enables you to play ranked games.
With this rune page, nobody can catch the me!
Although this is a good concept, the IP gains you get make you feel you are working at a sugar plantation. A 30 minute win can net you around 100 IP, but games lasting an hour only nets you about 130 IP while losses cuts those gains by 30%. This requires you to spend a heck lot of time playing games to rack up IP to buy the champion you want, and with most champion releases lately with an outrageous 6300 IP, it will be weeks before you save enough to buy the 6300 IP champions. By that time though (since Riot releases a new champion every two weeks), a new champion would be released. It�s like they�re testing your patience, constantly tempting you to stop wasting your time and shell $10 to buy that one champion you want. This is not helped by Riot�s sales and bundle that flash on your main menu and every time you enter the store. If this is not bad enough, runes can only be bought with IP and an average full complete rune page can cost up to 15k IP while the most expensive ones can cost up to 28k. Still not enough problems? You start out with 2 rune pages (three if you are fortunate to have an old account, not exactly sure how people got the third rune page free). Considering all the different roles in the game and champion play styles, you�ll often feel restricted unless you buy an extra rune page at the whopping price of 6300 IP or $10 worth of RP. Although League of Legends is a free game, these prices and rates are just ridiculous.
Its a giant enemy worm!!
So far, in League of Legends, the game offers two game modes with the new dominion mode on the map, Crystal Scar, recently released. The first is a 5 vs 5 mode, Summoner�s Rift. This resembles the classic Dota map with a jungle for each team to roam and gank, the river splitting both sides, buffs to be taken, all complete with a giant monster lurking near the river. There are some differences compared to the original though. The turret placement is completely symmetrical, so you won�t have turrets placed a bit more forward than on the other side of the map, all items have to be bought from your base shop, and there are no random buffs that can be picked up in the river. Got no complaints here, this is classic DOTA style and what the game is balanced off of. In an odd design choice though, you cannot see down cliffs into the river when you have the high ground. Is there any reason why you can�t? Other types of RTS games like Starcraft allow you to see from cliffs. Sure this makes it so players can snipe you if you don�t have vision requiring you to buy an extra ward and play more tactical, but this also makes it so you can defend your jungles easier from invaders. I� am no pro, but coming from a Starcraft player, this still seems like an odd design choice. Next off is...
So awesome, even the ground broke
Twisted Treeline, which is a 3 vs 3 player map. This one is overall smaller with two lanes instead of three and connected jungles to compete in with a different variety of buffs compared to Summoner�s Rift. I am no pro on this map (because I got destroyed every time I play on this map), but the champions are NOT balanced for this map. It�s not uncommon to see champions like Dr. Mundo, Singed, and Tryndamere running around the map, doing as they please and 1v3 enemy teams successfully. I would recommend you stay away from this mode and sticking to the usual 5v5, unless you�re in a premade with friends and just feel like playing this mode.
If you are new, or just feel like you had a long frustrating day and feel like roflstomping, there is a Coop vs AI mode to help you with this. The amount of IP and XP you gain from this though is only 75% of what you would normally get though, so you won�t be IP farming off this and also real game experience is just overall better.
Additionally, there is a ranked ladder mode for lose wanting to play more competitively. The game is just like normal�s, but instead at the champion select screen, both teams choose a set of champion bans and you can see the opposing champion picks, encouraging you to counter-pick champions.
Additionally, there is a ranked ladder mode for lose wanting to play more competitively. The game is just like normal�s, but instead at the champion select screen, both teams choose a set of champion bans and you can see the opposing champion picks, encouraging you to counter-pick champions.
Score: 8/10
Get em Princess Aimo!
Gameplay
In a standard team, you have 5 main roles. A tank, support, carry, mage, and a jungler. Tanks soak up damage while protecting carries, support heals or buffs their team while providing map vision, carries are the main DPS, mages does the burst damage, and junglers roam around the map and gank (surprise rape) anybody that strays too far from their turret. Pick a champion, set up your masteries and runes, and in you go into the fields of justice.
Pew pew Caitlyn
If you are familiar with Dota, Heroes of Newerth, or other kinds of MOBA style games, then you should just skip this since it�s pretty much the same. Pick one of three lanes (top, middle, or bottom) that best complements you (top and mid are usually for people that love to roll in money, hates their teammates, or prefers to work alone). From there you kill the enemy minions to gain gold and XP to level up your character while harassing your enemy laners. Sorry Dota old-timers, but there is no more denying in this game because Riot thinks its anti-fun. Hate it or love it, now you can focus on farming gold. There is also no more need to buy a scroll of town portal...because it doesn�t exist anymore! Instead you can just press �b� (default) and after 8 seconds, you�ll be teleported back home.
Pretty spread out fight. We got the upper hand though
Level up and do some annoying poking, and when the opportunity arises, you jump them to rise over their body with a handful of money. Getting first blood nets you 400 gold from the usual 300, and enemies which are on killing sprees are worth more (which means you should stop feeding money to him and kill him first ASAP). Having problems because you can�t handle the action and pressure in your lane? Call your jungler for a gank. When suddenly....
Run troll, ruuuun!
You see the enemy jungler charging at you with a rape face on, or you were too busy staring at Sona�s cleavage and suddenly get jumped. With intimate doom upon you, you mouse your fingers of �D� and �F�, your last hope. With a press of one of these two buttons, you�re suddenly safe! How�d that happen? Well you may remember items like the blink dagger with its special active ability to blink to a nearby location. In LoL, you can select two out of the thirteen (five utility, two offensive, three defensive, two for trolling, and one for jungling) �Summoner Spells� during the champion select screen to use in the match. Although these spells cost no mana and are handy in helping you escape or net you kills; they have insanely high cool down, so use it wisely. Do not worry if you still die though. Just watch your team, buy your items and after a set amount of time depending on the length of the game, you will be alive and running through the woods.
Nobody likes the big bad wolf :(
When mid game rolls along, it�d be time to start team fighting with some items you bought from the store. The store system is fairy straight forward; it�s a recipe system just like in Dota where simple items build into better one�s once they get mixed together. Compared to Dota, the recipe system is a huge improvement where you can easily see what you need and what you are building into, with more variety of items. Want your champion to do more damage? Build DPS items. Want them to live longer because you melt too fast? Simply build some defence. You can build your champion however you want, whenever you want. Win fights with these items, topple towers, blow up the Nexus and you win!
Score: 9/10
Presentation
The world of Runeterra is not exactly a lively one. Trees look like they�ve been glued together making the scenery rather dead sometimes.
Chibils is getting soiled on by Morgana
Riot does a good job keeping the character animations up to date, even updating the older champions with new animations. All 82 champions have their own notable personality and character with their own jokes, taunts, and dances included, further fleshing out the different play styles and differences between the many champions, all of whom are beautifully displayed with their own champion splash art and are wonderfully voiced by notable actors such as Wendee Lee, Laura Baily, and Danny Elfman (not official, just who they sound like according to members of the community).
The music however gets really repetitive. There is only like three tracks in the game(one track as you are actually playing) so often times, you won�t even notice the music is even there as you are playing since it�s nothing special or exciting. It won�t be long before you mute the music and substitute your own.
The music however gets really repetitive. There is only like three tracks in the game(one track as you are actually playing) so often times, you won�t even notice the music is even there as you are playing since it�s nothing special or exciting. It won�t be long before you mute the music and substitute your own.
Really awesome Blood Moon Akali Splash Art
Score: 7.5/10
Lasting Appeal
What makes you think you can stay playing LoL? Well there are 82 champions to collect, and unless you feel like spending over $500 on this game, there will be no shortage of work when you have all the champions especially when Riot releases a new champion every 2 weeks and runes to collect.
The community however is atrocious. Make no mistake, if you are doing bad, you WILL get called out by either teams and be bombarded with all sorts of insults and vulgarities. Don�t let this discourage you though! No one starts out pro and all you have to do is get better (which isn�t all that hard once you get the mechanics down, mostly just experience) and with the Tribunal however, there has been a great decrease of these kinds of players, but like trolls, that doesn�t mean they will stop.
The community however is atrocious. Make no mistake, if you are doing bad, you WILL get called out by either teams and be bombarded with all sorts of insults and vulgarities. Don�t let this discourage you though! No one starts out pro and all you have to do is get better (which isn�t all that hard once you get the mechanics down, mostly just experience) and with the Tribunal however, there has been a great decrease of these kinds of players, but like trolls, that doesn�t mean they will stop.
Nothing new here, amusing read though xD
The Riot staffs have their own share of problems. Their logic is questionable at times. They would promise champion changes and fixes, forum avatars, observer mode and replay mode. For a game that has made its way into E-Sports, all these features seem like a necessity (especially the forum avatar, there�s no reason not to have this), but as each patch day rolls along; no sign of the changes is to be seen. Riot does keep in good touch with the community though, you can often find them lurking on the forums during working hours and make their own posts if the thread is amusing or epic enough and they DO listen to their player base (female tanks, IP champion reduction and such).However it takes at least a week for them to respond a customer support ticket and players are sometimes kept in the dark when there are problems with delayed updates or server failures. Speaking of server failures, it is not uncommon for servers to blow up all of a sudden and server problems can usually happens at least once a week. This is not including patch days. Patch days happens every time a new champion is released, but the server downtimes during these days are ridiculously long and queue times to log in can last over 20 minutes. During these days, don�t expect to play until late afternoon.
Like it or not though...this game is still addicting if you get into it since the constant release of champions along with the newly released dominion mode will keep things fresh.
Like it or not though...this game is still addicting if you get into it since the constant release of champions along with the newly released dominion mode will keep things fresh.
A bad ass Blood Moon Shen Splash art
Closing Comments
Overall, despite its ridiculous IP rates and bad community, League of Legends is still an enjoyable competitive game with plenty of fun if you are willing to overlook those flaws. It�s basically a simplified version of Dota, aiming to put more fun into the game with its no-denying and built in blinks. If you loved denying and just can�t bear to lose it, then perhaps League of Legends is not for you and you should take a look at Heroes of Newerth instead, otherwise, with the recent end of Season 1 and the newly added dominion mode, the League could always use new recruits and you will have no problem finding a spot in among the legends.
So awesome, theres more ground breaking, bear/cupcake trap, pillar of filth rising action. You got everything in this game!
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Does this pique your interest? Why not join the League and play now? Sign up here:
http://signup.leagueoflegends.com
General Wukong, of the Journey to the West!
Sumber