Heroes of Newerth - Review

The Heroes of Newerth, a battlefield scarred with blood and glory, valiant heroes fighting to the death. Now you must take part and cut down your foes however you see necessary, whether it’s with magic or sheer physicality. I noticed not many people know a great deal about HoN or have played it themselves, of course with competition like League of Legends and DOTA 2 it’s basically a struggle just to be heard. But after playing some games of HoN, it does have its strengths.

HoN gives players an experience very similar to DOTA 2, with some heroes being completely mirrored with DOTA2. Items also are nearly completely the same, which is what put me off a little bit after starting up the game, but I still had to give the game a chance. Once starting up the game, you will have the choice to do a walkthrough tutorial, which is indeed helpful (especially for someone like me). It’s simple enough and if you have any game experience with other MOBA type games, you will still find some things a little challenging. After completing the tutorial, it gives you two game modes and two different maps. The first game mode is normal mode and the second being casual mode. Each mode basically explains them and I usually found myself playing the casual.

A battle ensues!!!!

The two maps are nothing different too other MOBA, with “The Forests of Caldavar” being the default and “Mid Wars” having one lane throughout the whole game. I found some of the heroes insanely fun at times, with the spell effects and death animations being pretty enjoyable and gorgeous at the same time. As I picked random champions, not really knowing what I was doing, I came to the realization that temporal players aren’t going to have the best of times. With a big learning curve to overcome in order to play this game at a decent level, it does put you off at times, but that’s what gives this game a competitive experience for players. There is literally a load of champions to pick
from, ranging from three categories, Strength, Agility and Intelligence. I’ve always been someone to try different characters to see what they’ve got and to be honest, each category of champions were just as fun as each other.

There is also a currency system, with silver being the in game currency you are able to obtain, with the gold coins having to be bought with real cash. Although I never actually used real cash to spend, the silver coins seemed to let me buy some cool stuff anyway. The goblin store lets you purchase a ton of goodies ranging from name icons, stat resets, and new models for your heroes, voice sets and new voices for the in game announcers. Now, even if there is a player that has a ton of gold or silver, buying loads of different things, it still doesn’t give them an advantage over someone else unless
they have acquired skill from their purchases.

HoN also delivers a kind of classic arcade experience, with announcers sounding like they’ve come out of Mortal Combat. I absolutely loved this theme; it made me think about the good old Warcraft Orcs and Humans days, just with a whole lot better graphics. I loved the visuals that have been put into this game also, with real cool textures, minion design, model design; everything was a nice tick of approval for me. I thought the animations were really well done as well, with wicked spell effects and the end conclusion of a game making it that much more satisfying winning a game. If you’re into the whole MOBA style of gameplay, I think you should probably have a go at this anyway. Although I did horrible at it, as I said, it takes a big learning curve to be successful, but once achieved, you will have hours of fun.

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Graphics       - 9.2
Sound           - 9.0
Gameplay     - 9.2
Longevity     - 8.8
Game Score - 9.0

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