League of Legends - Multiplayer Review

My brother has, in the past, been a manager of a successful football team, a fierce undead warrior and even the leader of his own civilisation. Right now, he's principally an incorporeal smoke monster with giant blades strapped (somehow) to his hands. My sister is a poison dart spitting pygmy, my Brother-in-law is a ninja. Oh, and I'm a giant armadillo cased in metal plating. No, we're not crazy (except perhaps my brother-in-law, pretty sure he thinks he actually is a ninja), but we are playing Riot Games League of Legends. LoL as it is known is part of a growing genre of
 online gaming - part RPG, part strategy, all action, an online battle arena game. The concept is simple, two teams of 3 or 5 people (humans, or AI bots are available) face off across a symmetrical battlefield and are tasked with destroying the heart of their opponents base. Standing in their way are a set of magical towers that blast anyone that comes into close proximity, along with a constantly spawning wave of minions pushing out towards the enemy base. To destroy the enemy base you are tasked with killing the minion waves, knocking down the defensive towers and finally blowing up the nexus at the heart of the enemy camp. All whilst your opposite team is trying to do the exact same thing to you.

He's a Freakin' Ninja!



The game, however, is in the detail, and the detail of this game lies in your choice of character. LoL boasts an ever growing stable of "champions", the character you choose to represent you on the battlefield, who each have a set of skills to help in your endeavours to victory. Each champion fits nicely into a category (some fit into several), based around their stats and abilities and how they help the team. Taking the examples of my lunatic family; my armourdillo (geddit?) fits into the tank category. He specialises in being first into a fight and taking damage whilst the rest of the team fights free from danger. The smoke monster, Nocturne, is an assassin. He specialises in picking out one enemy and taking them out as quickly as possible. There are also champions that specialise in doing area damage, stealth champions hiding in the shadows, and support and healer types keeping the team alive. Oh, and there is my brother-in-law...he's a ninja. Getting a good mix of these characters in your 5 man team is a great start on your way to victory in LoL.

Each character in LoL has 5 unique abilities. The first four will be bound to keys Q, W, E & R and form the backbone of your character. The last, a passive ability, is usually an additional bonus to strengthen one of your characters key jobs, or patch a big weakness. At the start of the match you are allocated one point with which you can choose one of your first 3 abilities. As the game continues, you will level up by killing enemy minions, champions, towers or any of the neutral respawning NPCs that inhabit the map. Each level up allows you to spend an additional point in your abilities, increasing their power as you climb the ranks. At level 6 (and then at subsequent levels) you can put a point into your characters "ultimate" ability. Normally your characters signature move, it will also be their most deadly! By the time your champion has reached the maximum level (18) all of your abilities will be maxed out, but the order in which you build them is entirely up to you!

Blades attached by force of will alone.

Alongside experience points your champion is also rewarded with gold for each kill they achieve. Your gold can be used to purchase all manner of ability enhancing kit back at your base. These items will have all manner of affects from increasing movement speed, decreased damage taken, increasing . Each champion has 6 available slots in which he can buy any items they want. A "recommended item list" is always shown for each character but interesting results can be achieved by straying from the beaten path. As a further option for individuality, you have a choice of 2 "summoner spells" that will further enhance your character in game, by gifting a short burst of speed, or allowing you to teleport around the map every few minutes, for example. Even if you were to choose the exact same champion as an opponent you would still be able to differentiate yourself in many different ways. Oh, did I mention there was also a Rune system in which you can purchase runes with in game currency to further enhance your characters strengths?

Which brings me on nicely to one of the key features of League of Legends. You see, the game is entirely free to play. If you want, you can play the game to it's fullest without ever spending a dime of your hard earned dosh. These champions you get to choose from? Well there are 10 free choices, which are rotated week on week, so every champion will eventually be free for a week at least. If you want a champion to be available to you each time you play, well that'll cost you. There are two methods of paying though. The first, you swap real life currency for "riot points" and use these to buy a champion. Secondly, you can earn "IP" through playing and winning games. This means that through playing the game, you can unlock any champion you might want. The only items exclusively available with "RP" are new skins for your existing champions. If you want you can buy a skin to make your Ninja look like Sub-Zero for example, or set your armadillo alight!

So that's the game. So how does it play? Well, it's hard to call. As with any online game, it really does depend on who you're playing with and against. The game is so heavily dependant on team play to succeed that if you're stuck with unco-operative people then it can feel like the worst game in the world. With the right people, in the right team, everything clicks into place and it plays like a dream. So can you review a community of gamers? Well, not really. The community of LoL sweeps across the new players all the way up to the elite gamers, even encompassing a Pro-Gaming core. At the level I'm playing at, the standard is mercifully varied. The game logs your win/loss ratio and mine is modestly hovering around the break even point. Unfortunately at the moment it's all to easy for another player to ruin the match, either maliciously or accidentally. If a player happens to disconnect, whether through anger or a lost connection, it leaves his former team-mates at an almost insurmountable disadvantage, no matter how many ninja skills they may have! The game is so evenly competitive that going into a fight a man short is more often that not going to end badly.

The leagues latest arrival : Rumble

One of the stand out points about LoL is the continuing presence of its developers and the work they are still putting into their game. Every other week at the minute a new champion is added to the pantheon, with it's own style and new moves and in some recent cases, a new mechanic of gameplay to differentiate it from the "norm". The pace of the new additions shows a depth of creativity within the team that shows no sign of abating. Aside from new champions, new skins for existing characters are added often, to spice up an old and trusted favourite of yours. The game is also regularly patched, in attempt to preserve the balance of the game. With such an array of champions and choices to be made, it must be difficult to ensure that any given champion has a fair chance against any other in a match up. The game make-up itself is not immune to changes. There are whispers of plans afoot to create a new map, larger again the 5v5 arena, allowing for bigger teams or perhaps 3 teams in one arena!

Having said all this, LoL is not without its flaws. Being an online game, and a popular one at that, there are a lot of times when you'll have to join a queue to get into the game. At peak times, especially weekends, this wait can be anything up to half an hour or more, which can be to much to bare on occasion. There have been a fair few problems with the lobby chat system meaning talking to your friends and starting games has been difficult.

It's really hard to pick faults in a game that you can download and play for free. You're having to queue for a game because the game is so popular, which in the long run can only be a good thing. Many an online game has gone to the wall because it couldn't find or keep a captive audience. LoL has taken every stride to ensure it retains it's players, and in moving into the world of E-Sports, it's fame and popularity will surely only grow to new levels. I would urge anyone that likes a competitive online game to give LoL a try, if only because its free, you might end up hooked*!

* - I take no responsibility for loss of mental stability due to excessive LoLing. You are not a Ninja. Repeat, not a ninja.