League of Legends

League of Legends Overview

League of Legends is a MOBA game for the PC that was released after the end of the Warcraft 3 DOTA days. In this game players are on a team of three to five other players who fight for control of a single map versus another team of players. The end goal of this game is to destroy the enemies base. Where this game really shines is it’s large selection of characters to choose from. Other than that the player is basically playing the same map over and over again. Another major feature this game offers is it’s extremely popular professional scene that draws many players and viewers.

League of Legends Screenshots

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League of Legends Featured Video

Full Review

League of Legends Review

League of Legends is an amazing team-versus-team game from Riot Games, with help from the creators of DotA Allstars, a B-NET game on Warcraft 3. The land of Valoran holds the League of Legends, where champions face off to settle disputes. You start off as a Summoner, a powerful being that summons the champions.

If you have played DotA before, then you should know the basics of the game play. If you haven’t, don’t worry, because there is a tutorial that goes over the basics.

Every champion has four abilities they can use. Three of them are their normal abilities and one is their ultimate. During the match, you can level up your abilities. Normal abilities have a max level of five, and the ultimate has a max level of three. Your champion’s max is level eighteen.

As a summoner, you will also have spells. A level twelve summoner will get you the final spell. Before a battle begins, you can choose two of 14 spells. Some of these spells are upgraded through masteries. You will automatically have two spells equipped. These spells are heal and revive. Heal restores the health of your champion for one hundred forty plus twenty times your level and half that to nearby allies. Revive will instantly revive your fallen champion.

Masteries are like talent trees. There are three of them for every summoner—offense, defense, and utility. Offense will allow your champions to have a high attack and ability strength. Defense increases armor and also gives a bit of increased mana and health regeneration. Utility deals with anything not related to defense and offense such as regeneration, cool down reduction, or gold. You can also respec at any time.

You can view anything involving your summoner, such as the masteries, in your summoner profile. The first tab contains your entire profile. It has your summoner level, experience, any boosts that you have purchased, and the number of points you have allocated into which masteries. Next to your experience bar and level, you will see the statistics overview of the player-versus-player matches. At the bottom of the screen, you can see your recent matches. It will show the character picture along with the outcome, the type of game, date played, and the EXP and IP gained. You can click on one of these to view that champion’s stats.

The second tab contains your rune books. As your summoner levels up, you can equip more runes into these books. Red slots are for mark runes, yellow for seal, and blue for glyphs. There are three large circles for the strongest runes, quintessences. Mark runes are offensive, seals are defensive, and glyphs are magical. They all increase certain stats. Even though you have the same rune name, it may not have the same effects. You can also combine runes in the combiner to create a stronger rune.

The third tab contains all the champions you currently have. As of now, there are a staggering forty champions to play, and they are coming up with more. There are many types of champions. Some champions will have an attribute, such as nuke or farmer. You can type these attributes into the find bar and keep track of all the nukers out there.

The final tab holds all of the spells that you, as a summoner, can use. Most likely there will be more spells that can be used later on. A level one summoner will have access to six of these spells. One match will increase you to level two, and you will have access to the cleanse spell, which removes all debuffs on the champion.

Anyway, back to the in-game stuff. The nexus, the main building of both teams, spawns minions. There are three types of beginning minions—melee, magic, and turret. Melee minions are hard to kill, but they don’t do too much damage. Magic, on the other hand, are easy to kill, but do a lot of damage. Turrets are ranged attackers that are both hard to kill and do lots of damage. You gain the most amount of gold from the turrets and the least from magic minions. You will only get the gold if you kill it, though.

There are also stronger units, called super minions. You won’t be able to get them unless you kill an enemy’s Inhibitor. Inhibitors only allow the weaker minions on the lane they are protecting. Inhibitors are protected by the second strongest tower on the map, so it isn’t a good idea to just rush it if you are low level. Super minions are the strongest minions, and they can easily demolish any buildings. Inhibitors will re-spawn after a certain amount of time.

My favorite aspect of League of Legends, or LoL, is the towers. They are actually called turrets, but I prefer to call them towers. These towers won’t do as much damage as they do in DotA so you will not get mauled at max level with snazzy items on. These towers will also target minions as the primary target instead, so it is best to stay behind the minions when attacking towers. Once the towers are locked onto a minion, it will show with a white line, making for easier viewing. You can rush in and not worry about it hitting you until the minions are dead.

Once you have won or lost a match, you will gain summoner experience and influence points. If you do a practice game, you will lose thirty-five percent EXP and IP. On the screen that pops up, you will be able to see your level, EXP gained, IP gained, the scoreboard, and the statistics grid/graph. The scoreboard will show the players’ and their champions’ stats, such as the kills/deaths/assists, items, and minion kills. The grid shows every single statistic of the game, and it breaks it down from team totals to just the players. The graph also shows all the statistics, except in graph form.

There is an in-game store where you can use your IP, or any riot points you have, to buy stuff. RP are points that you buy with your own money. IP is the stuff gained by playing games. They store is scheduled to open on November 17.

League of Legends is most certainly a very addicting game, and one of the best online team-versus-team games on the computer. Everyone should most certainly try this game. Originally, I was going to give LoL a 95, but I have changed my mind because of Shaco, the silly clown with two shivs. He is awesome! I give League of Legends a 100.

Final Grade: 90%

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