The first game review
(celebration squeal) of this blog will be of..
What is Dota 2? You’d
probably heard of Dota 2 from perhaps your brother shouting into the microphone
asking his team to back up, or maybe just from the immense clicking of the
mouse while you look on to notice enormous amounts of animations which only
served to make you feel even more confused, or just from the rants of an older
(maybe younger?) sibling who lost a game badly.
So, what exactly is this
game?
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| Dota 2 gameplay |
It is a game created by
Valve (with the help of Icefrog) as a successor to the original Warcraft 3 mod
that was titled Defense of The Ancients (and therefore Dota), the difference
between the original Dota and Dota 2, most noticeably, is the graphical
upgrades in terms of the appearance of the different heroes and the different
animations of each of their skills.
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| Differences from Warcraft 3 to Dota 2 |
Dota 2, like the original, pits
two teams, one named Radiant and the other, Dire, of five players against each
other to see which team gains decisive victory by destroying the opposing
team’s “Ancient”.
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| Team Radiant's Ancient |
Players utilize a vast range
of heroes to accomplish this goal, each with their own special abilities and
also an ability called the “ultimate”, which can change the entire flow of the
game when used correctly.
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| One of the heroes, Enigma channeling his ultimate, Black Hole, a potential teamfight-changing skill |
Once the players have
selected their heroes, they battle it out on a diagonally symmetrical map, with
the bottom-left being the base of the Radiant, and the top-right being the base
of the Dire. Three lanes branch out from either base, and three stationary
threats (all equally spaced out from the base) known as towers protect each
respective lane.
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| The minimap: colored dots and crosses are used to differentiate the teams and the color refers to the one specific hero. |
When the game commences
after the players are given some time to select and position their heroes,
creeps start to spawn during regular intervals of time at the barracks, and
will slowly make their way down the lane into the one thing they are supposed to
do every game: fight to the death.
The other purpose these
creeps serve is to give bounty to the enemy heroes of the other team, they do
so by “last-hitting” the creep, heroes accumulate gold (to buy items) mainly
through last-hitting creeps.
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| Last hitting earns money, allowing the hero to afford costlier items within the game. |
There are of course more
game mechanics that can be discussed, but I feel that there’s more to this
review than listing these various mechanics (which is quite boring), which can
be learnt in the game itself.
