Mecha Gears

	Title	Defense of the Ancient
	Comment	"Grows on you"
	Verdict

I am going to review a game which I have played for a few years. Well, the game is not exactly a title that you can purchase, because it is free. Yes, free. That is, if you have a copy of Warcraft 3. This game is called Defense of The Ancient, or DOTA for short. It is basically a Warcraft 3 map designed and maintained by some creative gamers and is freely distributed.

Gameplay
DOTA is a game that will attract casual gamers who enjoyed PVP, but does not have the time and commitment to get involved with MMORPGs. The game pitted 2 teams, the Sentinel and the Scourge against each other. Each side can hold a maximum of 5 players in a single match. The purpose of the match is simple-to destroy the base of your opposing team. Now to do that, player will roleplay a character selectable from 4 hero taverns. Each side has 4 such taverns and each tavern contained unique heroes. But if you enabled certain option in the match, players will be able to select heroes from opposing taverns as well. Also, you are able to purchase items such as potions, weapons and armors from a bunch of vendors in your home base. This is important, for the items sold can be combined to become much more powerful items by purchasing scroll that combined them. However, to get all these stuff, players will need to accumulate enough gold. This is where the creeps and enemy heroes come in. Now, each base will spawn creeps, and they will automatically engage in battle with opposing creeps and heroes throughout the match. While doing that, the players are required to aid the creeps in 2 ways-to kill opposing creeps and opposing heroes. In the process of successfully disposing opposing creeps and heroes, the gamers will earn gold. Now, farming for the gold and knowing what to buy are only part of the battle. Each hero is given 4 spells, with the final one known as the ultimate. As a hero progresses from level 1 to level 25, new spell or upgrade of an existing spell option will become available. In addition, the stats of a hero increases after each levelling. In general, there are 3 types of hero-Strength based, Intelligent based, and Agility based. As you can see, there are many variations to keep the match interesting and exciting. I will not reveal too much about the gameplay content. Too much information given is called a spoiler. Defence of the Ancient is truly a game that a gamer needed to experience by himself/herself.

Story
Story? What story? There isn't a need for one in this game. This is a pure PVP game, much like your FPS games, so the lack of a story does not matter. Fans of this game can explore the various character descriptions during the hero selection period from the taverns, but ultimately the fun part is getting to know what spells, what hero combinations and what items to buy to crush your opponents.

Interface
The interface is essentially what you see is what you get in Warcraft 3. The minimap on the left hand side of the interface is one of the most place to keep your eyes on. Enemy heroes are shown as red dots, and you know that you are in serious trouble when those dots started converging on you. On the other end of the interface is a list of hero inventory slots. When you purchase an item, it will take a space. You can rearrange items to different slots although you hardly need to. The spells for each hero are located at the lower left corner of the interface. Spells are casted when the buttons are pressed, or you can press the assigned keyboard character for that spell. Some item such as the Dagon required gamer to click on the it and then on the enemy to trigger.

Graphics
DOTA PVP matches are filled with Warcraft 3 eye candy effects. From chain lighting of Maelstrom to armor reducing Desolator, there are enough effects to make the game interesting throughout a match. I know that at this moment in time, Warcraft 3 graphics are looking a bit stale due to low polygon counts, but most Dota players that I know of does not really complain much in this area. Blizzard is never a company that chased after polygon counts. Instead, they focused on designing games with high replay value. I believed DOTA belonged to this category.

Verdict
DOTA is a game for the casual PVPers. Play the game, and you will understand the philosophy of owning others, performing double kill, triple kill and killing spree madness.