I’m not exactly one for these newfangled RTSs, and I’m not really one for multiplayer anything, but I am one for freeware, especially when it’s this charming. So I’ve taken the opportunity to play a few rounds of Riot Games’ League of Legends and I can’t say I was disappointed. For anyone expecting a hardcore hero-based RTS with colorful characters and solid gameplay, look no further, and it might even have what it takes to convert a few non-RTS people into the flock with heavy RPG elements. With an asking price of 0 dollars, this is a game that anyone can try without regret.
I don’t usually care for the hero-based style of RTS. In my younger years I was addicted to Warcraft/II and Starcraft, but Warcraft III was a bit of a snag for me. Aside from a ridiculously melodramatic single player that removed me as a character from the gaming experience, the heroes were too essential for gameplay for my army-based, tactical mind of the past. But it was a popular idea, and a lot of games within the RTS genre have tried to imitate the success. League of Legends seems largely successful at it’s attempt. While WC3 and most of it’s successors have tried to force a balance between unit management and hero building, LoL focuses entirely on an RPG style hero system and let’s the AI control units, charging them in a linear strings of recklessness at enemy turrets. This might seem like less of an RTS because of the lack of player controlled masses, but it requires plenty of strategy. Without the cannon-fodder, every enemy unit is targeting your hero, and without the support you won’t last very long.
As a hero you will be doing a some micromanaging. You pick abilities and buy equipment, and with a swarm of heroes to choose from there’s a lot of early description reading you have to do before you can figure “the best” choices. But there’s a lot of room to experiment, and if you’re a veteran of the hero-based RTS genre, or Diablo style RPGs than you’ll have an edge jumping in.
Tactically, the game moves like this: wait for troops, rush turret with troops, pull back, wait for troops, repeat. It’s a surprisingly addictive pattern, but the repetition is obvious within moments of play. If you’re not there for a long game than this is probably not for you. It’s a lot to handle at first, but luckily there’s a tutorial and bots to play against, though they can be a little dim and very ineffective at getting you ready for the “real” thing – PvP multiplayer. A lot of people will probably enjoy the vs. experience, though I prefer anything single player. But in LoL there’s no campaign mode, and I’m well aware that it wasn’t designed for a person like me. The replay value relies completely on your love for competition.
The real charm behind LoL is in the heroes themselves. You can pick from a massive array of characters to control, and the majority are surprisingly quirky. Why you would choose the generic archer above the weeping adolescent mummy or a disturbing Ice Climber on yeti-back is beyond me, but there really is something for everyone. A massive selection of heroes makes the game much more interesting, and battles a little less predictable. Plus they may have created the single cutest death machine with Teemo.
League of Legends is a great game for the RTS and RPG crowds, and with a price that can’t be matched it would be silly to not give it a test run. By focusing on the hero-side of the hero led RTS genre, LoL manages to make it something more than a Warcraft 3 clone. It’s not strictly an RTS. There’s a heavy emphasis on RPG and even a tad of tower defense, but it’s roots are firmly planted in the soils of tactical warfare. Try it out, you might like it.
