Bloodline Champions is a competitive game with unique gameplay. It has mixed several basic elements from different genres of games and combined them into a whole new type of game. The basic pillars that define the game are as follow:
- 3D Top-Down perspective
- WASD movement and Aim 'n Shoot
- Hero-based (Heroes of Newerth/League of Legends/Defence of the Ancients)
- No unfair advantages (No Items/Levels)
- Marketplace and UI
3D Top-Down perspective
One of the first games I ever played was Grand Theft Auto, which to me is a classic top-down shooter game. This camera angle is used mainly in RTS games for getting a good overview of the battle, and in such a hectic game as BLC it really is needed. If you do not have a good overview of the battle, it easily becomes hard to keep track of everything going on around you. As many of you know, in World of Warcraft arena 5v5 battles it quickly becomes hard to keep track of who is under CC lock down, who is DPS focused and so on. This problem is solved in BLC by the complete overview of the battle provided by the top-down camera angle.
WASD movement and Aim 'n Shoot
Your success in BLC is essentially only based upon skill, teamwork and team composition - depending on game mode. And since the balancing is pretty damned good you can play any character and still win if you play well enough. WASD movement - instead of "Point and Click" with pathfinding - is also a benefit since this gives you full control over your character; she will not end up suddenly running the wrong way round a pillar and you cannot accidentally give her orders to run to a point on the mini map. This simply removes the possibility for unnecessary mistakes, and gives you that exact control that you want while playing any game that relies on your accuracy. This also applies to the aiming. If you misjudge where an opponent is moving or don't aim well, you will miss. There are no abilities that auto target other players, you only have: melee, projectile or area based abilities. If you miss a lot of your abilities, you will loose damage, healing or crowd control which isn't a good idea given that most of your abilities have a cooldown which can leave you vulnerable if you have wasted all your outs.
Hero-based and No unfair advantages
BLC is a game in which you pick a hero that has a specific role. There are tanks, healers, range dps and melee dps. There are of course heroes that can fill several roles but they still have a basic role that they are made to fulfil. A good example is the Inhibitor; he is classified as a tank, but played correctly he can be a damage dealer or a tank. Luckily most heroes are fairly balanced when matched up in groups. Sadly 1v1 fighting will never be totally balanced, but that I think is too much to ask of a game that is really made for 3v3 fighting. Luckily there are no carries, no Blinkdagger crazy chars and no mid-game floorwipers. There are no items to boost your char, you cannot level up for more health and better skills. You are either dead or you are alive and the only way to survive is to play better than your opponents. This is a great boost to the games balance, but it also removes a certain type of strategy play. As in DotA, HoN and LoL you cannot let a character stand alone and farm up gold, items and levels on a lane as they may become immensely overpowered. Therefore there is a constant need to kill targets that are becoming highly valued. The lack of an experience and/or item system is favourable as it does not let certain characters get exponentially better the longer the game is played.
Marketplace and UI
If you have played LoL, you will be very familiar with Bloodline Champions currency system. The main difference is that in BLC it takes a long time to earn Blood Coins(in-game currency) and this brings down the review score. I played 121 custom games and 10 rated games, with a win ratio of 67%, and I'm still only at 12500 coins, while to unlock a character you must have 17000 coins. It will take a long time to get all of them if you do not wish to pay for the game. And with only a 4 char/week rotation it will be hard to figure out which characters you want. Although they did do a great job with the UI while in battle, where it is minimal but has all that you need, the menus outside of battle are very clumsy, hard to navigate and not very thought through.
The game runs runs flawlessly on any midrange PC which is a big benefit if you can't afford one. Unless you want to play with a free game account; then pricing is quite hefty and is a big drawback.
Free edition accounts can be registered at BloodlineChampions.com
Champion edition (basic) costs 29.99€ + 10€ for 4 more characters
Titan edition (full edition) costs 89.99€ and includes all characters including unreleased characters.
Final Score: 82%
+Innovative
+Skillbased
+Runs well on most systems
+Competative
-Hard learning curve
-Bad menus
-Expensive
+Innovative
+Skillbased
+Runs well on most systems
+Competative
-Hard learning curve
-Bad menus
-Expensive
2 comments:
Just ja, had nästan glömt bort detta spel!,
Låter super roligt speciellt då man måste ha lite skills själv..
Synd att det är rätt dyrt!
That sounds awesome! I play DotA and LoL so I would love to try a game where you use WASD movement keys instead of clicking with the math and pathfinding
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