rts

I finally had time to try the new League of Legends mode, Dominion yesterday. Unfortunately it was pretty frantic and I didn’t snap any pictures so I had to use a stock screenshot for this article. I intended to attend as Tristana but accidentally chose Nunu (long story short: I was debating before I chose which one to pick and confused myself), which as it turns out was a good thing. I hadn’t played Nunu in quite some time so there was a brief, “what does he do again?” period before I settled into his rotation. It’s a good thing Nunu’s tough enough to endure some learning pains.

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It’s hard to review online games since they’re always in flux, but we’re going to try anyway. League of Legends is a fairly ambitious riff on the DOTA formula but does it hold up as a full game of it’s own?

League of Legends

League of Legends is based on the highly popular Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients, itself a unique take on tower defense games. League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients’ gameplay style has spurred a new genre, the multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA. Some people aren’t fond of the name, but then again many people scoffed at the term ‘massively multiplayer’ once upon a time – and we see how that went.

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I’m a big fan of a good RTS game, but I never dove into the original StarCraft. The reasoning is simple; I picked up the genre after the original game’s heyday. I began playing RTS titles with Age of Empires II: Age of Kings late in AOE2’s life cycle. I honestly never made much of an attempt to go back to the older RTS games that I’d missed (aside from the original Warcraft, which I had bought before getting hooked on the genre). The sum of this rant is that I pretty much was stepping in to StarCraft II blind as to it’s play mechanics. The result has me left me impressed, surprised, and most importantly, hooked.

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I came across this game by accident. I was skimming a magazine for random articles to read and one on this game caught my eye. After reading the article I went online and found that it was due the next day. I pre-ordered it (can you really call being one day early ‘pre-ordering?’) and picked it up the instant it was available to me. I’m glad I did, too, because this game is something that I need every minute I have to review, being as big as it is. How big is it? How does, ‘as big as you want it’ sound? Continue reading

Keep in mind while reading this review that I writing as someone who has put countless hours into the Empire Earth series. I enjoyed the original and loved the sequel. Thus you can understand why I’m so disappointed with Empire Earth III. The first two games were huge, almost unbearably so, but that was their charm. They, rather then focus on a particular time or place, tried to encompass the entirety of human history. While the nations were a little on the generic side, they allowed you to play how you wanted, when you wanted. Then, Empire Earth III came along. Continue reading

This is my first introduction to the long-running Total War series. I’d considered trying out the previous titles but was put off by the complexity. However, when I was gifted this title for the Holidays, I figured this was my chance to give it a shot. What I found was a game that, in all it’s facets, sets a new bar for strategic depth and control. It’s also a darn good game, to boot. Continue reading