Heroes Of Newerth (PC) Review
A BrutalGamer.com review.
If you’re a veteran strategy game player, you may be familiar with something called ‘Defence of the Ancients’, a map that is associated with Warcraft III. DotA is a multiplater arena battle game where players battled to elminate the opposing factions base with a combination of a hero character they choose and NPCs that flow out of your own base.
Heroes of Newerth is heavily based on DotA. This game takes the form of a 3v3 or 5v5 battle to destroy the opposing teams monument. Along the way, there are 3 ‘lanes’, where the NPC fighters, known as ‘creeps’, charge towards the enemy. You need to eliminate the enemy defence towers along the way to the monument, with your army getting stronger and more varied the more structures you destroy.
There are a grand total of 64 heroes to choose from in the game, 32 for each team. These are further broken down into 3 classes, Intelligence, Agility and Strength. Each hero has different abilities, which makes each game of HoN a unique experience.
There is a levelling system in the game, which currently has a cap of 25 for each hero. You gain experience by killing enemy creatures and destroying enemy buildings. You gain significantly more experience by killing an enemy hero. When you level up, you can put upgrade points into one of 4 abilities that your hero has. Each ability can be upgraded 4 times, and once all your abilities have been upgraded, you put the points into your stats instead, so you can customise your hero more. In addition, you get gold as well as experience. This can be used in the shop at your base to buy armour and items to recover health and mana or give additional stat benefits to your hero.
Despite the age of the scenario on which this game is based, the graphics are pretty impressive, looking somewhat like you’d expect Warcraft III to look like if it was released now. The effects for spells and explosions are pretty and there is a good amount of detail.
The game is certainly a fun and interesting game, but the big factor that will put most people off the game is that the learning curve is horrendously steep. The in-game tutorial only teaches you the gameplay basics with one of the heroes, but then you’re left to your own devices. Jumping straight into a public match is ill-advised, as all but the most experienced DotA players will find themselves being eaten alive, and likely getting a torrent of abuse from their team mates as a result.
The community is very hardcore, and in some cases, quite elitist. There is good reason for this, as the developers S2 have started organising tournaments with cash prizes for the most successful squads. Despite the competitive nature of the game, however, there is help at hand for the newcomer as well. There are lots of videos and things to read around the forums and on other sites, and there are clans in the game dedicated to helping new players learn good tactics for the game. There is also the ability to set up and play in private matches that have been designed for people with low skill levels, although as you might expect, there are the odd ‘feeding traps’ that experienced players set up to steamroller the inexperienced, but these are few and far between in my experience.
Once you get over the steep learning curve, which does take time, the game becomes a lot more fun and you realised how well designed the mechanics of the game are. However, this is a game for people who are willing to take the time to learn it. If you’re looking at this from the perspective of a casual gamer, you should look elsewhere. The lack of ability to try the game out is a risk, but there will be set times in the future when people will be able to try the game for free.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Heroes of Newerth is a good looking, well designed and very deep arena battle game. The community isn’t always the most friendly and the time needed to truly appreciate the game is prohibitive to people who want to play casually. If you’re a newcomer to DotA games, then you might want to wait for a trial period before plonking down the cash for this, as it’s not for everyone. But if you’re an experienced player who wants the challenge to compete for actual prizes as well as pride, then it’s a no brainer.
1 vote
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