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Denver, 3:40 AM
Thu Nov 5
64 posts in the last 24 hours
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Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
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Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
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Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
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Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
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Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
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Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
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Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
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AJ Glasser
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Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/04/09
The gameplay in LoL is great & really addictive. There's something really rewarding about being limited to only having 4 abilities (and 2 summoner spells) in contrast to the 20 or so keybinds I used in WoW PvP. The feeling of punishment is also greater when you make a mistake however. "less is more" is really suitable phrase for this game.
What initially drew me to LoL was the variation & design of the champions, I love them. Because of the wide variety of champions and people who play them, it really makes every game feel very different. This made me feel that the lack of maps really isn't such an issue, although I'd love to see more maps.
I am playing LoL less than before because of the matchmaking. It seems that since release more than before good players get matched with new players to balance a team and I've had more matches versus (full) premade teams that would stomp the other team. I will probably play more once ranked games are available, which will have a seperate solo + 2man premade bracket and a 5man bracket.
I'm not a fan of Riot's microtransaction plan, I'd rather just buy the game and get a complete package, but that won't stop me from enjoying & playing this game.
To anyone that is interested in this game, it might be good to know that the ingame Store is down untill the 17th of November. This means that all 40 champions are "unlocked" untill then, as was in the beta. So it's a good oppertunity to try out every champ before they restrict them. #leagueoflegends
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11/04/09
"2) Bank on the fact that Americans will be delighted that these mini-games star a Japanese pop culture icon.
3) Charge two bucks a pop."
"from the company you might forget brought you Super Mario 64, WarioWare and Wii Sports but that you might remember used to churn out the Mario Partys and sold NES games on the Game Boy Advance for $20."
"but the Domo games hurt the credibility Nintendo"
"Domo Games Micro-Review: No Thanks, Nintendo"
Does noone else think it odd that he spent almost half the review humoring the idea that Nintendo is an evil corporation? I mean, I know a lot of people think that and that's fine, whatever. But I read a game review to know the pro's and cons of said game. Not to read the reviewer make half-witted comments about the people who made the game.
11/04/09
11/04/09
That isn't the point I was making at all.
If the quality of the games only calls for two negative paragraphs, that's perfectly ok by me. It's just that I don't think a review should be making jabs at the company. #domo
11/04/09
cute jabs at Nintendo should not be the first sentence of a serious journalist's review.
make sense?
it's by far not just you, by far not just this article and does NOT happen all the time.
but things like this happen too frequently to not question the site's integrity.
PS - I think you are quite correct about the quality of the game. so please keep in mind it's not what's said but how. #domo
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11/04/09
I find that understandable to an extent. I noticed you cited Nintendo's "dirty dealings" (if you will) with Mario Party and the Gameboy Advance.
Using a 10 year old example (Mario Party 2 in this case) makes about as much sense to me as pointing to the Microsoft monopoly debacle in the 1990's and using it as "context" in every bad game they publish.
While noting the context is perfectly sensible in a review, I feel your idea of context may be excessive.
Regardless, I appreciate you discussing this with me. I understand more of where you were coming from. #domo
11/04/09
wouldn't it need to be more like "The Ups and Downs of Nintendo, a DSiWare spotlight" and then name some of those titles with "innovation and value" as well? #domo
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:D #leagueoflegends
11/04/09
Before you go nuts and flame, I agree with you, to an extent. I was in betas for both, played both a lot, and still play HoN a lot. HoN is much closer to the source material, has much more depth, and much less weird things like runes/unlockable heroes.
LoL isn't for the hardcore DotA community, it's for people who want a F2P game that's probably pretty good if you're into this sort of game but are afraid of the even steeper learning curve and initial cost of HoN or War3/etc...
So, good review. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Crecente has a strong history of DotA. If this is true, the game serves its purpose wonderfully. It is a more acessable DotA-lite game where people can more easily jump into and enjoy themselves. The game will probably do well for it's targeted audience. HoN will probably do well to a more hardcore/crazy competitive/ex-DotA audence. #leagueoflegends
11/04/09
League of Legends actually improved upon DOTA by making casters more useful (Spell power allows them to scale, where as in HON they just become crowd control or support characters at best late game). They've also simplified the store and item upgrade system while HON is still a bit of a mess in this regard.
The community for HON is also seriously lame - it hasn't improved from DOTA it's gotten worse - if your team isn't dominating within the first 10 minutes everyone wants to leave.
11/04/09
As far as casters not scaling in DotA/HoN, I agree it's a neat concept with LoL... but DotA was balanced around this fact. In DotA/HoN a caster like Zeus/TB or Lina/Pyro will be phenoms early-mid game. They do much more damage than their LoL counterparts at this point. They do taper off late game, but any well balanced team will try to have a couple nukers because the early game benefits are so huge. They can get more support-based items, like Shivas/Sheepstick to which LoL has nothing close to.
And I played plenty of LoL games with leavers in the first 15-20 minutes too, if the game was going bad. It wasn't the majority of the time, but it happened. I have to say it actually happens LESS in HoN, but I have a pretty high PSR and it's probably skewed due to that. From my experience LoL's community is no better than HoN's, which in turn is no better than DotA's... they're all pretty terrible. #leagueoflegends
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Any thoughts, from people who have already played League of Legends and know if it's good or not?
11/04/09
It's fun, but don't take my word for it. Go ahead and download and try.
You'll notice that the game play focus is a bit different. The games are a shorter, and spells are a lot spammier. You'll get the hang of it, though.
If you want a chaparone through the game (and this goes for anyone on Kotaku), add Katai to your friends list and I'll give you a rundown the game's basics. #leagueoflegends
11/04/09
"The games are shorter" Yay!
As for your offer, I do appreciate it and will keep it in mind. Hopefully I'll remember. Send me an inbox message or something in a few weeks; I'm busy with school right now. #leagueoflegends
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@Brian Crecente: Ah, my bad. I just assumed that "Horrible Community" would be it's own item. :P #leagueoflegends
11/04/09
My solution thus far has been visiting the IRC channel (#leagueoflegends and #lolbeta on quakenet) or the ventrilo server (info on LoL forums) and finding players there to team up with. Your play experience will improve, for sure.
I really hope they implement some sort of guild/clan system soon so I can play matchmaker games with a handful of people I find to be pleasant human beings.
11/04/09
The problem with LoL and HON is that they are reviving a dead game into a new game, which mixes newcomers with Cockbags. #leagueoflegends
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Demos... #domo
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11/04/09
The Pictobits review is the only reason this game was even under my radar but thanks for letting me know about Boxlife, I missed that one.
@all:
I give up. Cheers for the heads up. #domo
11/04/09
11/04/09
...which nobody bought. I know because I probably picked up half of the set (both Zeldas, Castlevania, Xevious, Dr. Mario, and Ice Climbers) new for $5 or less a game. I think the entire series hit clearance racks, and quickly at that. Even now, they're still dirt cheap.
Nintendo has a long history of repackaging and rereleases, but that's only because they've been around longer than the other companies. Sega did it too (and still does), Sony and Microsoft do it when they can, and so does every company that pumps out retro compilations or has access to WiiWare, PSN, or Xbox Live. It's just part of the industry now, for better or worse.
Not that this justifies defiling the good name of Domo-kun, though.
11/04/09
Oh, and where's your Domo Clock, Nintendo? (Sorry if Nintendo reads this and gets any big ideas.)
I'm glad someone remembers the $20 NES/GBA debacle. At the time Nintendo was hoping that retro-gaming could carry a 400% novelty tax (assuming the reasonable current model). What's surprising is how many gamers thought the price was reasonable (at the time). Maybe it was just the "free market uber alles" folks coming out of the woodwork, but that pricing sucked. #domo