Review by: Jason McMaster

I’m not overly fond of going into great detail about game systems, but for League of Legends, it’s necessary. In Warcraft III, there are a couple of missions where you only control one hero. These missions sparked the idea for a mod called Defense of the Ancients where you control one hero and their four abilities while taking on other heroes in a team-based environment. That is League of Legends in a nutshell.

Games play out like rounds in a first-person shooter – whichever team completes the objective – in this case, destroying the other team’s fortress, wins. The players choose a hero, each with their own unique set of skills, to act as their avatar while they control his or her actions from above. All the while, troops stream from each fortress to attack the other side – hero or normal trooper – on their way to a glorious death in battle or, hopefully, victory.

At the start, you choose one of forty characters, level them up by winning battles against other players or killing the computer-controlled monsters for experience, and destroy the other team’s base. Of course, the other team is trying to do that to you as well, so it isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are five different character types: Assassin, Fighter, Mage, Support and Tank. Each of these has their own bonuses and drawbacks. For instance, the tank can take a hit but usually doesn’t do a lot of damage, whereas the assassin is the exact opposite. While most new people want to go on a killing rampage, a team made up of five assassins is going to have a harder time against a more balanced group. As players move through League of Legends, they usually find a class and type that suits them.

Players also begin each match with a set amount of gold to buy equipment with at the start and, once the round begins, gains gold slowly as the game advances. Killing enemies (NPC or not) and defensive towers grant a gold bonus, so other than just the pleasure of the hunt, there’s another reason to kill everything you see. Whoever has the most gold has the best equipment, and that’s what wins games.

Equipment in League of Legends can fit into a few neat categories – damage, defense and health. Each base item will give you bonuses to different areas of your character, like attack speed or mana regeneration, and many of the items can be combined to form more powerful items as you go along. The higher level items can make the difference between victory and defeat on the right character.

At this time, the game only supports a single 5v5 map with three “lanes:” clear lane of traffic for the creeping monsters (or creeps) to traverse on their way to the enemy base. Between these lanes are open woods with several tougher monsters to fight for attack and experience bonuses. The woods also provide a good place to hide if the battle gets too hot or if you want to set up an ambush.