On Jan. 13, Blizzard Entertainment released a beta key to their upcoming game, “Heroes of the Storm”. HotS is a multiplayer online battle arena game, also known as a MOBA on the PC.
Similar to League of Legends. The game is playable for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. The beta costs forty dollars but will be free as soon as the beta is no longer in development.
Players of HotS are now able to play twenty years’ worth of iconic Blizzard characters from different games such as Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. There are four different playable roles, including assassin, warrior, support and specialist.
The interface is easy to use and organized. It has futuristic details which add to the gaming experience in a positive way. The loading screen has different artwork for all five of the different maps. It shows how the map is played by displaying the various enemies the player is supposed to defeat and different objectives the player can capture.
I believe the graphics are very clean and detailed compared to any other MOBA. Each character was designed with detail as well along with the playable stages. As a fan of other Blizzard games, it’s very convincing to play a game with a mash-up of different characters I’m familiar with. The different stages give the game variety which doesn’t make it too repetitive.
Comparing HotS to LoL, HotS is quicker paced, and players are constantly fighting over objectives and battling on different maps instead of just one map. Unlike LoL, HotS doesn’t have gold or items that you have to defeat minions for. LoL is only based on Riot Games’ own characters and is its own game.
I enjoy HotS much more than LoL because there are less playable characters which makes the player have to be careful of the character they choose. Due to a smaller amount of characters, team strategy is much more risky if a wrong character is picked to play.
In LoL, the player must deliver the final strike to the opposing team’s minions in order to receive a reward. I dislike this feature because it doesn’t require any strategy. HotS does not have this feature which is more appealing to me because it is less stressful.
Personally, I enjoy playing an assassin more than any other role because it is a fun experience filled with action and strategy in order to bring massive damage on the opponent team. At the same time, this position is somewhat stressful because in order to defeat the other team, the assassin needs to inflict damage more than any other role. The team is only a knight without a sword if there was no assassin.