League of Legends
League of Legends is one of those games that take thousands of hours to master. I myself have played over two thousand hours in this one game. My review is based off of team playing with friends rather than solo play with strangers. I enjoy it because it allows up to a possible of nine of my friends to play with me, but usually only four. In the world of MOBA’s (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) it is one of the most balanced. The design of the game is not too excessive that slow computers can’t run it, and it’s not too low quality that good computers don’t make it better. It has a variety of over one-hundred playable characters that are designed by professionals. There are not too many abilities that it is not humanly possible to know them all, but it is also quite simple for new players to learn their favorite “champion,” which are the characters that you choose to play for that game, and become an expert as them. This game requires skill to play, agile fingers, and strategy.

In the world of multiplayer, it allows groups of five people to be on a team, and fight against another group of five people to prove who the better team is, and who has the most synergy. It has a few different maps, some that pick random champions for you, and some that reduce the global cool down on everyone’s abilities. The skill cap (how much skill it takes to master a champion) is high throughout the game, meaning that if you want to get good, you really need to try your best while playing, and concentrate. There is no structure to the game really, some champions are somehow related through the lore, but most champions are just randomly created and given a well thought out story when they are implemented into the game. Everything in this game is magical, and fantasy based, there aren’t any realistic qualities to the game. The originality is poor, there are many games like this and they each copy some aspect from each other, whether it is characters, or spells, or play styles. The setting is an arena where 10 champions fight against each other to win the game, getting points. There is an internal economy system, people can buy minor stat increases, and other champions with the points they get while in the game. I like how they gave players the ability to buy more points to get skins for their characters, but not to the point where it is a pay to win game.

There is a ranking system to this game, for those who want to compare themselves to the global player which puts you in games with players of equal skill levels. The more of these ranked games you play, the higher ranking you get and the better players you verse in your games. Once players get to the highest level of play, Challenger, they begin to play with the professionals who play for a living.

The player support is reasonable, it’s not the best in the industry, but it’s better than the likes of EA Games. The response time of the administrators or support people is a few hours up to two days. There is also a tribunal system in which players can vote to punish toxic players or dismiss what a player has done, and if the player votes for the right choice, they get in game currency which can be used to buy new champions.

There are many things I believe the creators could have done better, such as input from the players, or map design. The player base creates their own champions every day, they make the art for it, the 3-D design, and the spells that the champions would have. Riot Games will occasionally take some ideas from the forums, but usually with a spin to it. I understand that some of the champions the players invent are un-balanced or overpowered, but I truly believe that some of the champions would make the game a better place, and allow for more skilled players to make some sick plays.

The downfall to his game type is that, as of recently, many different games have had the same play style, such as DOTA, Smite, and LOCO, which are basically the same game but different graphics and a bit more cartoony. I prefer the more cartoony style because I have played World of Warcraft, which has very similar graphics.