League of Legends is a multiplayer game that follows summoners as they progress through a school of summoning. Summoners are taken to the school to learn how to summon and augment champions, who do all the fighting for them. There's no story beyond this simple background, and frankly, there doesn't need to be. We're fine with a straight multiplayer game any day of the week. After all, nobody really cares about the lore behind Defense of the Ancients or Demigod. They just want to thoroughly wreck the competition with some awesome spells and heroes.

Out of all the games similar to Defense of the Ancients, it's clear that League of Legends is the best looking. Defense of the Ancients doesn't look that great, thanks in part to it being a mod. Demigod looks good, but has a relatively bland art style. The same goes for Heroes of Newerth. League of Legends, however, is bright and colorful, with interesting character designs and evocative landscapes. The cartoonish nature of the visuals keeps the game from getting stale, and there is a clear delineation between effects, characters, mobs, and other aspects of the environment. The sounds are also stellar, with some excellent voice acting and noticeable effect sounds that are identifiable even amongst the chaos of combat.

The basic gameplay of League of Legends is that of Defense of the Ancients. There are two sides: light and dark. Each side sends enemy units against the opposing side with regularity. If the player characters were not around, then the two sides would fight indefinitely. Thankfully, players are around to tip the balance of battle by killing enemy units and players. The eventual goal is to reach the enemy headquarters and destroy it. You can only do so after destroying the outer defenses of the enemy installation and making your way into the center through the stiff defense of opposing players. That's it. The relative simplicity of the goal is complicated, however, by a bunch of external variables.

The first of these is the addition of summoner spells. These are spells set outside the game itself, and they have a huge cooldown. However, they can turn the tide of battle, as they give you distinct, massive bonuses. Summoner spells include the oft-used Heal (restore health to your hero and surrounding allies), Fortify (makes turrets invulnerable and faster-firing), and Revive (instantly revive your hero). In the hands of a skilled player, the summoner spells can spell the difference between victory and defeat.

Alongside the summoner spells are mastery points and runes. Mastery points act like talents from MMOs such as World of Warcraft. They apply to all heroes, you gain a new mastery point with each level, and they are divided into distinct trees. Runes are similar to mastery, except they are limited according to slots, which unlock over time, and you must purchase the runes to slot. They apply to whichever hero you choose, and you can have two separate books that are choosable at the beginning of a round. Thankfully, with both masteries and runes, you can change your choices without suffering any penalty. In the case of runes, this involves switching out runes for one another, and for masteries it simply returns your mastery points to you.

Some more minor changes include the removal of "denials" (killing a friendly creep before an enemy can), always having the hero selected (unlock the others, where you can switch your selection), and the inclusion of natural, passive abilities for every hero. This last one is particularly cool, as the inclusion of natural passives for each hero helps to differentiate them more. The game, however, sticks to the three-lane gameplay of the original Defense of the Ancients, and the available maps are always symmetrical and laid out in the exact same way. If you are used to Heroes of Newerth or Defense of the Ancients, you will instantly.

Naturally, microtransactions will always come up when talking about a game such as this, and we are happy to say that they are relatively painless. While you can always put money into the system to unlock skins and heroes permanently, the developers have a regular, rotating stable of heroes to play as each week. The prices on the characters are also fairly cheap using in-game cash, which means that you can play your favorite heroes and buy him after a few games. The most expensive heroes, however, require many, many games to win with. Beyond the purchasing of heroes and runes through the in-game currency, you can also spend real money to buy boosts or new character skins. Nothing essential to succeeding in-game uses real money, and the progression is quick, so this is a game that you can play free without any issues.

The heroes are divided into several different classes, and each of these classes is a stereotype. In general, you have tanks, damage-dealers, and support, with sub-divisions such as ranged, mage, or melee. For example, our personal favorite hero (Cho'Gath) is a melee tank mage. His abilities are mostly damage-dealing, he relies heavily on mana to maintain himself, and he attacks people in melee. In contrast, one of the perpetual favorites (Ashe) is a ranged fighter. She doles out plenty of damage by herself, her abilities use mana but don't drain her out, and she attacks at a range. Every character is tagged with these, and there are even tags that tell you a little about the ideal way to play as that character. For example, if a character has the tag farmer, then they are good at getting gold.

There are a few issues with the game. What Demigod does very well is make players invested in the way their NPC side is doing, and League of Legends has no such investment. You can't influence the growth of your teams units in any way, which reduces the game to pure heroes. While that's fine, the genre is meant to be a merger of strategy and competitive RPGs. Being able to improve your teams units would be an excellent addition to the game, even if it's something as simple as having an item that gives creeps around you a bonus. While this isn't a common addition to the DotA-like genre, it should be!

Another issue is the similarity in the maps. While we do like having a familiar map to play on, some more variety would be nice. Something like a 3v3v3 map, for example, that takes place on a triangle. This was previously done in this genre with a Warcraft 3 custom map. Or a game with different lane shapes, such as two lanes that snake around or 4 lanes that zig-zag across the battlefield. We really hope that more maps get added, as we love some variety in the landscape we fight on.

Finally, there's the issue of community. League of Legends is easily the nicest of the DotA-like communities, but it's still sort of difficult to deal with at times. People will yell at you if you aren't being perfect and complain about how they are the only good player on their team. This will even happen when you are winning and stomping the enemy flat. If you die a bunch, for whatever reason, also expect to be called a "feeder." (one who feeds gold and experience to the enemy by dying) However, the community is much more casual and nice overall than others, so these disheartening events are not as common as they might be in Defense of the Ancients or Heroes of Newerth.

League of Legends is one of the best free games we've ever played, and that's saying something. It's even more impressive given our natural dislike for free-to-play games. League of Legends plays its microtransactions in such a way that it doesn't even feel free-to-play, and the gameplay itself completely overshadows any concerns of real-money transactions. In short, it's a must-play in the realm of free games, and is one of the most quality titles we have played, commercial or otherwise. You can download the client from the website. Check out all of our videos right here on Big Download!

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