Heroes of Newerth is a strategy game produced by S2 Games and distributed by To Be Announced since 12 – May – 2010, on PC platform.
In Heroes of Newerth, two teams of up to five players each assume the role of leading a special unit of the main character. With the help of AI – led troops, each team has only one objective and that is to destroy the other team’s base. While the game progresses, players can gain experience and gold, that can be used to upgrade skills or to purchase items to make their character stronger.
Some unique features of the Heroes of Newerth include:
- Dozens of Hero characters, over 100 items, and regular content upgrades to ensure that playing Heroes of Newerh twice it will never be the same experience.
- Client / Server Architecture eliminates lag, codes and map hack.
- Built on K2 graphics engine, it provides enhanced graphics and optimization for system requirements.
- A powerful map editor and skills update.
- The game is available in six translations: English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian.
- Available for PC, Mac and Linux.
Minimum System Requirements:
- Processor – 2.2GHz Pentium 4 / AMD 2400+ or faster
- RAM – 1GB of RAM
- Video Card – GeForce 5 and ATI 9800 w/ 128 MB VRAM
- Windows XP, Win2k or Windows Vista
- Network Connection Required
As a short review, I can say that what launched this concept in most Internet cafés around the world and Scandinavian LAN Party was the crazy success of DotA. Who would believe that a map of Warcraft III, that looks more like a showdown between two bands than a battle of reflexes and tactics, will conceive its own kind?
I tell you who. Anyone. The catch of DotA to the public manifested just like the previous fans enthusiasm on Counter-Strike. The principle is trivial – mechanics are simple and entertaining, the matches are short enough that you don’t need to have long sessions of games to make you feel fulfilled, and it’s a multiplayer game.
Practically, in multiplayer games, the so criticized elements in single-player games disappear. If you play enough DotA, you don’t observe trees, demons and fountains anymore, but lines, strategies and chat conversations. You begin to forget about the presentation and bling because the main purpose is to overpass your opponent in a tactical game, not admire the landscape.
True be told, Heroes of Newerth is a little faster and much more fluent. Warcraft III’s engine had limitations in terms of animation and objects interaction, and allowed numerous exploitations and became slightly annoying for beginners that faced veterans. Then, it lacked a decend lobbying system – Battle.Net wasn’t designed for DotA. And finally, the graphics and models were taken from the publisher’s database. Not that this is very disturbing, but those who played Warcraft III a lot, recognized each character model, eventually with some other colors on it.
Therefore, HoN is not a innovation hunter, because it’s a DotA that deserves its money. That’s because it has an active support from the manufacturers, because on the beta period there were introduced, reconfigured and balanced many heroes. Because latency it’s not because “of them” and the matchmaking if coherent, fast and ergonomic enough that you can’t get lost in options. More than that, there is an already well known rating system, and sorting is generally made after these.
In addition to the requirements expressed in each organized match, there is the auto-balance option that balances the team depending on their rating. Also, if you suddenly get disconnected, don’t panic because you can return to the game without any problem.
How friendly is HoN with beginners? I imagine there will be a few and I know what is like to be put face to face with a veteran in a game. Well, the concept is quite simple and easy to understand, and beginners have at their disposal a set of recommended objects, in order to understand at least the main idea of inventory build. Besides, there is a pretty well made tutorial as first option in the main menu.
On the other hand, because MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) players are competitive by nature, there wasn’t omitted the online ranking that present fierce battles for the first places. And I’m glad to say that for the first time in quite a while, the social side of online lobby has the ergonomics and functions specific to Battle.Net: not only you can create a list of friends, send private messages, join a clan (or create one), analyse the profile of any player in the ranking (matches, favorite hero, wins, defeats, and so on) or chat with partners from the last match, but will be very easy to do these things.
An atlas of heroes is available both online and in the game (Hero Compedium) and presenting in great detail each one, making any therycrafting available at a click away, along with a list of items that can be purchased. Dream is an editor for those who think that they can create a more terrifying beast than anything ever occurred to those of S2 Games.
Once the action begins, the rules are simple – you have two combatant sides (Legion and Hellbourne) that are initially on equal positions on a map more or less symmetrical. Constantly, groups of soldiers and monsters, march from each base on the three paths where the “war” is carried out, and each player controls a character that he uses as know to “push” the front.
In essence, the same feeling from DotA is kept, that in a balanced game, an effective synergy will almost always help a more modest team to win in front of independent players. Deny’s (the killing of you own creep if they have little health points in order to deny the opponent from gold and experience) has the same importance here as in DotA. The pace of a HoN match is somewhat more accelerated than the tempo adapted for DotA gives the impression that HoN is the most dynamic MOBA game of the moment.
Thanks to K2’s engine, HoN animations are slightly more trimmed than in DotA, but this is something expected, considering how old is the graphics engine behind Warcraft III. The fireworks and colors produced by spells and artifacts is quite interesting and fluid, and when you get used with the coloring, they won’t distract you from the game.
Those who invested in their PCs and want to have “the ultimate experience” can activate reflections, dynamic lighting or greater special effects, but this doesn’t mean that HoN won’t run properly on modest systems, which is a huge bonus for setting a solid base of players.
However, most important thing is that the price shows the fact that S2 Games understood from start the labeling of the game as a renewed product: $30 is not a bad price tag for a product that keeps alive the interest of experienced gamers.
