Describing League of Legends is tough. It is a champion based turret defense game. As a player you get to choose a champion to control throughout the match. Your champion progresses through a leveling system that will grant you new abilities and spells. The objective seems simple enough. Push enemy champions back, destroy their turrets while protecting your own and eventually crush the opposing base. If only it were as simple as it sounds. In a normal game you and two or four teammates (depending on the map) are matched up against an equal force of enemy players. Both bases spawn endless waves of minions to aid the teams, but ultimately it comes down to how well your team works together.
Champions come in many shapes and sizes. Some have tons of health and armor. Others can deal extreme damage at range. Still others are masters at sneaking around and assassinating other players. But with a bank of over fifty active champions, it isn't hard to find a few that fit your play style. There is a catch here. Even though this is an entirely free game, all of the champions are initially locked at first boot. But each week ten "community" champions are available to play. These usually represent a wide variety of characters while still being pretty balanced within themselves. Players can permanently unlock a character by spending Influence or Riot points. Influence points are gained at the end of every completed game while Riot points are purchased with real world money. Naturally, wins produce many more Influence points than losses, so players are rewarded for good play.
But that's not all. The player, or "Summoner," also progresses slowly through a leveling system for matchmaking purposes. For every level a summoner gains, they are granted a point to spend in one of three talent trees: Attack, Defense, or Utility. These add different bonuses to the player's champion. There are a few other nuances that are complicated to explain, but are fairly easy to pick up as you play the game. I suggest spending a little time in experience-free practice games before jumping straight into matchmaking. And matchmaking with your friends in an arranged team makes the game much more fun.
Until now I've raved about a complex but entirely free game. Unfortunately, it isn't all pop-sickle-in-the-summer awesome. The developers, Riot Games, have constructed a game built on a fragile balance of power. Which would be great in a perfect world. But it isn't a perfect world and players will drop because of Internet connection, computer trouble, or perhaps they have better places to go. Regardless, they always seem to be on your team. And depending on when they drop out, it can be very crippling to be down a champion. If the team who drops a champ isn't on the cusp of victory, it usually doesn't end well. There is an option to surrender, but it doesn't become available until after a certain amount of time has elapsed. And lets face it, if you are down two champions from the get go, it sure would be nice to surrender and get in a new game. Instead you will get this message: "It is too early to surrender." Guess what- it is not too early. We know when we are going to lose. Let us leave. Please. Please Riot Games. There is a penalty for leaving games, but it doesn't seem to be enough to stop players from jumping out.
League of Legends also only runs on Windows, so if you are a Mac user, you are out of luck unless you have added Windows to your computer. That should be another focus for the development team because they could really make a name for themselves with a multi-operating system game.
Here is another problem: There are only two maps. I understand the work that must go into making the maps balanced, fun, and functional. However, some variety would be nice. Riot Games pop out a champion every couple weeks, I just ask that they pump out a couple maps every now and then. There are over fifty champions. Two maps. I'm just tired of playing Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline.
Oh, and did I mention that the League of Legends servers like to crash? Well, the servers crash, and while Riot Games does a pretty good job in getting them back up in an hour or two, it can be pretty annoying. But what do you really expect? I can't get too mad at the people who are behind this game, especially when I'm basically abusing them by playing this game with no intention of paying them properly for what is really a pretty awesome deal.
So take this game for what it is, not what it may be someday. Right now it is a very well put together and ultimately fun game to spend some time playing. It has a few hiccups here and there, but for a developer who has taken what should really be a twenty to thirty dollar experience and put it online for free- I am more than happy heap praise on it.
ONE FINAL NOTE: The pictures from this article were taken in game on my laptop. It is running almost all the settings on low to help my frame rate. On higher end computers it looks a lot prettier.
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