A week ago I got invited to the SMITE beta. For anyone who doesn’t know what SMITE is, it’s a traditional MOBA style game, except the in-game view is third person instead of the usual isometric view.
I’ll start by saying that I’m not a huge MOBA fan, and the only moba game I’ve played is League of Legends. The genre gets repetitive after a while and the community surrounding these games makes casual gameplay a very unpleassent experiance. That said, if you enjoy the competitive nature of these games and don’t mind getting yelled at by teammates when things go badly, this type of game might be for you.
The above applies to MOBA games in general, and I expect the same from SMITE, however during my first 10 or so games, I haven’t seen much of this.
Despite all the negative stuff about the MOBA scene, I enjoy this game a lot more then League of Legends. The gameplay feels different enough to appeal to me. Another great thing is the whole theme surrounding the game; in SMITE you play Deities from different mythologies instead of champions that doesn’t seem to fit into any kind of big theme. I know there’s some lore written for the champions in LOL but after having read just a few of the champion backgrounds, the lore is crappy at best.
Enough rambling, let’s talk a bit more about the game itself.
Interface
If you’ve played other MOBA games you’ll probably be familiar with the interface. It seems like the developers have simplified things a bit compared to LOL. For example, the game will auto buy skills and items for you as a new player.This really helps when you’re trying to get into the game.There’s also a quick comunication system that schould simplify teamplay a lot. Overall the interface feels really smooth and easy to use.
Graphics
I’m not sure what the final system requirements for this will be, but it looks very good for the most part and runs really smooth on my 2 year old system.
Audio
Nothing to complain about.
Gameplay
The game is a MOBA, so in that sense it plays like any other MOBA game. There is a few differences though. First of all, the game is in third person perspective instead of isometric. This makes a huge difference in what you see and how the game plays, also, from what I can tell, there’s no targeting: you’ll have to aim all your skills by yourself. In LOL terms, every skill is a skillshot. There’s also other more subtle differences that enhances the gaming experiance. E.g. Minotaur instead of the LOL nexus, phoenix instead of the last line of towers ans so on. Overall the third person perspective makes you feel more immersed.
Conclusion
If you’re interested in MOBA games at all, I see no reason not to try this out. It’s kind of fun, and it will be free to play. It’s nice to see someone taking a different approach to this genre.