This past month and a half I've been playing the hell outta this game, and now I'm going to tell you how it is and see if you should give it a try for yourselves.

The game: Heroes of the Storm is a MOBA made by Blizzard Entertainment. The game entered closed beta on January 13, 2015 and the full version of the game was released on June 2, 2015. The game features all the iconic characters from Blizzard’s most popular games: Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft.


Gameplay:
- The game currently has 7 playable maps with a new map called Battlefield of Eternity being added on June 30, I believe. The maps are:
1. Blackheart’s Bay
2. Garden of Terror
3. Sky Temple
4. Tomb of the Spider Queen
5. Haunted Mines
6. Dragon Shire
7. Cursed Hollow


All of these maps have their own unique objective to them to help you win against the other team. For example, on Blackheart’s Bay you need to destroy treasure chests and collect doubloons. You bring enough doubloons to Captain Blackheart and he will use his pirate ship on your enemy’s forts and turrets. On Sky Temple, temples randomly activate and you need to stand in them in order for the temple’s power to be used on the enemy’s forts.

I kinda like having the idea of having objectives on these maps but I also feel like the game sometimes depends a little too much on them. On some of these maps you can win without even fully engaging the other team’s buildings. I hope that the frequency of the objectives on these maps will get toned down a little bit.

Also the maps that are currently available are all Warcraft themed which is nice and all but I want more variety. Battlefield of Eternity is a heavily Diablo themed map which is cool but I want more love towards Starcraft. Maybe when Legacy of the Void comes out, some Starcraft themed maps will be released for this game. Having a Terran, Zerg, and Protoss themed map with their own unique objective to them would be really nice.

- Right now, the Hero roster consists of 37 playable characters with more being added soon. When Battlefield of Eternity releases, they are also releasing 2 more Diablo Heroes which will be a total of 39 playable Heroes. Some of them are original characters like Sgt. Hammer, which is a Terran Siege Tank. Out of all Terran vehicles they could have chosen, they pick the Siege Tank which is an annoying unit in Starcraft. A Viking or Goliath would have been cooler and much more interesting to play as in Heroes of the Storm. Also, Blizzard brought back The Lost Vikings for Heroes of the Storm. The Lost Vikings are from of their much earlier games way before the very first Warcraft game. There are also rumors of them adding some characters from their new game Overwatch too.


The current roster consists of:
- Abathur (Starcraft)              - Valla (Diablo)                - Rehgar (Warcraft)
- Anub Arak (Warcraft)          - Sonya (Diablo)              - Falstad (Warcraft)
- Azmodan (Diablo)               - Zeratul (Starcraft)         - The Lost Vikings (Classic)
- Arthas (Warcraft)                - Tassadar (Starcraft)      - Murky (Warcraft)
- Brightwing (Warcraft)           - Johanna (Diablo           - Thrall (Warcraft)
- Diablo (Diablo)                    - Kael 'thas (Warcraft)     - Zagara (Starcraft)
- Illidan (Warcraft)                 - Muradin (Warcraft)        - Jim Raynor (Starcraft)
- Jaina (Warcraft)                  - Nazeebo (Diablo)          - Tyrael (Diablo)
- Uther (Warcraft)                  - Tyrande (Warcraft)        - E.T.C. (Warcraft)
- Sylvanas (Warcraft)            - Sgt. Hammer (Starcraft) - Stitches (Warcraft)
- Kerrigan (Starcraft)              - Tychus (Starcraft)         - Gazlowe (Warcraft)
- Nova (Starcraft)                  - Chen (Warcraft)
- Malfurion (Warcraft)             - Li Li (Warcraft)


- There are 4 classes of Heroes: Assassin, Specialist, Warrior, and Support. I mainly play Assassin and Support and the characters I mainly play as are Nova, Jaina, Tassadar, and Valla. If you’re familiar with the Heroes of this game and how they played in their own game, more than likely they will play the same and have a similar role in Heroes of the Storm.


- The games are two teams of 5 players each and every match will last you around 20-25 minutes, shorter if you completely destroy the other team or lose really bad. The longest match I had was about 27 minutes and it was really intense throughout.

- Unlike other MOBAs, both teams in this game share an XP system. This can be good and bad at the same time. When I say bad it means that a crappy player can literally do nothing on a good team and be successful stat-wise. It can be good for people who are new to the game so they can get the idea of what the game is really all about and help them be better. So in this game, it’s better to leave a Specialist hero or any hero that gains bonuses from killing minions push a lane by themselves to help gain XP for the team. Sylvanas and Zagara are made specifically for these roles as their abilities favor against minions and forts rather than other Heroes.

- There’s no Item Shop which is kind of a shame. Instead, there are Talents. Every few levels, you get to select Talents for your hero. You can keep building Talents to make one ability better or make all other of your abilities stronger rather than focusing on one. At Level 10, your hero can choose between 2 Ultimate abilities and these are different and unique for each character. Some examples are, Raynor can choose between calling the Hyperion to do a strafe run and bombard an area or have 2 Terran Banshees follow him and attack any enemy he orders them to. Jaina can either summon her Water Elemental to help attack or choose to have the Ring of Frost to root/stun enemies for a long time. Either way, both Ultimates are relatively good and I have yet to see a Hero whos Ultimate ability sucks.


- Each map has recruitable mercenaries. There are Warriors, Siege Walkers, and Bosses. Warriors are the basic mercenaries and are tougher and do more damage than normal minions. Siege Walkers are 2 giants that shoot at forts from far range. And finally, Bosses are the toughest mercenaries and only spawn on some maps. In order to recruit the mercenaries, you have to defeat them and when you stand on their Spawn ring, the bar fills up with your team’s color and the mercenaries will spawn, now on your side and will push the nearest lane until they die. Mercenaries are extremely effective and can dish out tons of damage if left alone by Heroes.

- Mounts allow you to get to locations faster. It’s a really good way to get to key locations much faster to help your allies. I also think it’s hilarious like how you can get the giant, evil Diablo to ride a little unicorn for his mount. Mounts consist of a horse, battle beast, cyber wolves/regular wolves, a pig, a unicorn, and a magic carpet. All of these Mounts have their own unique skins to them that you can either buy in-game with gold or money. Also if you’ve beat 100 people in the Play mode in Hearthstone, you unlock the Hearthstone Card mount which is probably the coolest looking mount in the game. It’s like your character is riding a hoverboard.


Graphics/Perfomance:

As expected, the graphics for this game are pretty damn good. I run the game on Medium and the textures, lighting, and Heroes still look top notch. I don’t know if this is the Default setting but when I first booted up the game, everything was automatically set to High and the menus were extremely laggy. I then switched it to Medium and everything ran smoother. When the Beta went Open, I played the game with friends and some of them had technical issues such as really low FPS drops and they have better PCs than me. It has gotten better since its official release but every once in a while it will happen again.

And for some reason, some of the Heroes when they talk, their mouth won’t move. I don’t know if this only happens on my end but I just find it strange how some Heroes mouths won’t move when they talk.


Audio/Soundtrack:
Most of the Heroes retain the same voice actors that they are accustomed to which is nice. I remember watching early Beta footage and Zeratul had a much different voice than his Starcraft 2 voice. It just didn’t fit him and the way his character is. The overall audio from the game also sounds nice.

Each map also has its own announcer that will comment on your progress through the match, alert you when you can select new Talents, and make fun of both teams at times.

All the songs in the soundtrack are a mix between Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. It has the guitars from Starcraft, the horns from Warcraft, and the chants from Diablo. If there is one thing that Blizzard never fails at, it’s definitely the music.

The soundtrack will sometimes play different music whether during gameplay or in the main menus. Here are some examples:


This one especially captures the Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo themes and puts them all into one song



Extra Content:

- Every Hero has their own skins to them. Each have about 4-5 skins to buy with gold or pay with money. You get gold from winning matches, doing daily challenges, and ranking up a Heroe’s level. Some skins give the Hero altered abilities to match the skin’s purpose and will sometimes change the Hero’s voice. I think these are cool but some of them can be a little pricey. $10 for just 1 skin? Come on man. Most of the mounts are only unlockable via real money and that’s kind of sad really.

- Before a match starts, Heroes will often comment about each other, sometimes throwing insults or compliments back and forth. For example, most Heroes would say bad stuff towards Diablo and Diablo would tell them back “If I could destroy you now I would do it!” Also throughout a match when you kill other Heroes, your Hero would insult them saying how bad they are. I thought this was a funny and clever touch to the game as it adds more life to it.

Here are all the Heroes interactions towards others


- Also if you keep clicking on your Hero, they will say their “Pissed” quotes and its hilarious. Blizzard is known for referencing just about everything in existence and it continues in this game. You have things like Star Wars references, music references, other game references, and hell they even managed put a few Frozen references in this game. My favorite Pissed quotes would have to be Tassadar’s because his are hilarious. Thrall’s are good too as he says he misses RTS games, possibly hinting at a Warcraft 4? Who knows.

Here are all of the Heroes "Pissed" quotes




Final Verdict:
Heroes of the Storm is a fun game and adds a breath of fresh air to the MOBA genre, but it does have its fair share of issues and lack of certain features which I explained above. I’m a Blizzard fanboy and I fully support anything that Blizzard does but I think they could have shown more love towards Heroes of the Storm and focused less on getting money from skins and stuff.

If you’re looking for a MOBA that’s more laid back and easier to get into, then this is the MOBA for you. Its not as competitive or difficult to understand like other MOBAs as its more pretty straight forward.

Heroes of the Storm gets a 7.5/10, fun game but could be so much better. Hopefully future updates will improve the game and make it even better than it is now.

ARTS

edit: my biggest qualm is that haunted mines and garden of terror need to be reworked, and the game doesnt seem to be optimized to run well on lower end pc's like other ARTS games

Imo shared xp and some of the map objectives ruin the game

either A) lets a shitty played do well even though they're awful mechanically or B) completely hinder a good player from making a comeback amd winning a game when their team is behind

And some of the objectives are bullshit  for example one involves collecting things across the map and more often than not they spawn completely in one teams favor.

That's why they should either consider toning down the frequency of the objectives on how often they spawn or have a separate playlist where there isn't any objectives in the maps at all.

Quote from: Jono on June 29, 2015, 06:10:38 PM

Quote from: Tyger on June 29, 2015, 06:07:13 PM

Imo shared xp and some of the map objectives ruin the game

either A) lets a shitty played do well even though they're awful mechanically or B) completely hinder a good player from making a comeback amd winning a game when their team is behind

And some of the objectives are bullshit  for example one involves collecting things across the map and more often than not they spawn completely in one teams favor.

That's why they should either consider toning down the frequency of the objectives on how often they spawn or have a separate playlist where there isn't any objectives in the maps at all.

i dont think toning down the frequency of the objectives would be a good change. everything is already balanced around how teams take advantage of the objectives and use them to snowball quickly; we wouldnt want to slow things down and turn the lovely ~20 minute game times into the same retarded hour long sessions that LoL and DOTA are famous for. all they really need to do is some fundamental reworking of the objective mechanics/spawns on a few maps

I think the maps that need a rework is Haunted Mines and the Garden of Terror. Those are my least favorite maps in the game, mainly because of the objectives in them.

I am looking forward to the new map and how that one is going to play out.

I've played about 6 matches on the Battlefield of Eternity map. Its a fun map with a pretty cool objective in it but you need to have a coordinated team in order to do it. The objective is to protect your Immortal as he fights the other Immortal. The Immortal that ends up winning the fight will push a lane until he runs out of health.

The map also looks beautiful and you can tell Blizz made sure every nook and cranny in this map looked top notch. The whole Heaven/Hell split-up in the middle of the map is cool as well. One side spawns on the Heaven side and the other spawns on the Hell side.

The Butcher is the newest playable Hero from the Diablo universe. I haven't seen that many people play as him but for the matches I've seen him in, he's a pretty reliable and powerful Hero. I'm gonna give him a try to see how he plays. To me, he plays a lot like Stitches who's also a big melee warrior like The Butcher.

I just wish the new map came up more often but I'm glad Haunted Mines doesn't show up as often anymore, at least for me. I cannot stand that map.