DOTA 2 - IMPRESSIONS
To elaborate on the fundamentals, Dota 2 is a free-to-play competitive arena battle with RPG level and item elements. It’s difficult not to treat this ‘impression’ of a game that is still supposedly in beta (yet has hosted many prize giving tournaments), as a guide but Dota 2 is about as kind to newcomers as a cat is to a legless mouse. Myself, I am only familiar to the original by playing with friends as well as a few tries at League of Legends but it took me a while of watching others play it on YouTube before I was brave enough to try it.
The simple game finder will team you up with four others to take on another five players and depending on the game type you have chosen to search for you may be able to pick one of a vast number of heroes (known as all-pick), or from a choice of three (known as single draft). The latter being more fair as in all-pick players can often choose the hero that are most familiar and skilled with. There are other types of game but they are all just other ways of getting a pool of heroes to choose from. Each hero falls into one of three categories: strength, agility and intelligence, and has a number of unique skills, some passive and some active. Everyone begins at level one with a skill point to spend which you receive at each level to upgrade your skills or stats. Items can also be bought through money you earn from lasting hitting minions, destroying towers or killing enemy heroes. There is only a single map, divided into three lanes in which minions, spawned from each team’s bases with charge down. These can’t be controlled but by supporting them and attacking the much stronger towers, you can slowly progress your way to the enemy base and ultimately destroy their ‘ancient’ to win the game. Though not only are there minions and towers to think about, the enemy heroes are also aiming to do exactly the same thing as you are and killing an enemy gives you an injection of xp and money as well as removing them for the game until they respawn. Tackling enemy heroes is the most difficult part and must be done tactically and negotiated strategically with team mates. Use your team, abilities, items and skill right and you could take out a number of the enemy heroes and gain the chance to push forward and assault the enemy’s base before they respawn with full health and mana.
The game runs smoothly, even on lower-end systems with next to no lag issues and boasts a bright and beautifully created battle arena. All the hero characters are modelled well and all have their own voice with similar charm to the units in Warcraft and with as many hints to video game references.
There are numerous more aspects and gameplay mechanics of the game I could iterate but for anyone who is new to the game, try and watch some videos, read the wiki and try and absorb as much information as you can before diving too deep and consequently tainting your opinion on what has grown on me to be an addictive and engrossing game. With so many heroes to use and a great free-to-play model created by Valve, there is no reason not to at least give Dota 2 a go.
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