# Forum > News > OC News >  Heroes of Newerth

## Jackie Moon

This Review is going to take you through the "in's" and "out's" of the highly anticipated new RTS release:




*General*
*Game:* Heroes of Newerth
*Genre:* Action, Fantasy
*Developer:* S2Games
*Cost:* $30 USD with no monthly fees

*Available on:*
PC

Heroes of Newerth (HoN) is a new take on the classic, the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne custom map called DoTA (Defense of the Ancients). Heroes of Newerth takes on the role of DoTA superbly, taking the famous game with a long history into a new place. HoN is the most similar game too the original DoTA competing against other games such as League of Legends (LoL).

Story
The story of Heroes of Newerth is an extension too the popular game Savage. Where you the player get taken into a brand new world were you are able to play as the Heroes of the Mystical land called Newerth. Heroes of Newerth uses many of the original heroes in the FPRPS Savage aswell as a vast variety of heroes who have joined the battle of Hellbourne VS Legion.





```
Windows

Minimum:
Processor - 2.2GHz Pentium 4 / AMD 2400+ or faster
RAM - 1GB of RAM
Video Card - GeForce 5 and ATI 9800 w/ 128 MB VRAM
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Network Connection Required

Recommended:
Processor - 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo / AMD 3500+ or faster
RAM - 1.5GB or higher
Video Card - 256MB Geforce 7800+ or Radeon X1900+
Network Connection Required (Broadband)
Linux

Minimum:
Processor - 2.2GHz Pentium 4 / AMD 2400+ or faster
RAM - 1GB of RAM
Video Card - 128MB fully OpenGL 2.0 / GLSL 1.20 compliant Geforce or Radeon
Network Connection Required

Recommended:
Processor - 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo / AMD 3500+ or faster
RAM - 1.5GB or higher
Video Card - 256MB Geforce 7800+ or Radeon X1900+
Network Connection Required (Broadband)
OS X

Minimum:
Processor - Intel Processor
RAM - 1GB of RAM
Video Card - 128MB fully OpenGL 2.0 / GLSL 1.20 compliant Geforce or Radeon
OS X 10.4 or newer
Network Connection Required

Recommended:
Processor - 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo or faster
RAM - 1.5GB or higher
Video Card - 256MB Geforce 7800+ or Radeon X1900+
Network Connection Required (Broadband)

Supported video cards:
OS X 10.4: Geforce 8600, Radeon HD 2400 or higher
OS X 10.5: Geforce 7300, Quardo FX 4500, Radeon X1600 or higher
Note: Integrated Intel GMA 950/X3100 is not supported
```



The graphics are very rich with the developers at S2Games always making improvements. Heroes of Newerth's graphics are very stable and in the five months that I have played the game I have yet too see a fault.















The Game has a well developed sound base, with each Hero having his own unique voice and sayings. Every spell has a feel of "epicness" to it with every spell engaging the audience into an action packed fight to the death!



Heroes of Newerth has very few maps at this point in time, with a highly anticipated Map Editor coming out in the future. Along the Dream Hero Creator, Heroes of Newerth is set too overtake the more popular League of Legends. Heroes of Newerth's main map of choice, Forest of Caldavar is taken directly from DoTA. It is a well symmetrically organized map containing two opposing player bases, with three lanes, and several towers guarding each lane along the way. Each base spawn periodically NPC's (Creeps) and patrol each lane toward the opposing team's base. The main objective in the game is based upon killing creeps and enemy players to earn money, and purchase upgradeable weapons and armor. Using combinable items "Item Recipes" your hero has the potential to become powerful enough along side your team to destroy the opposing base, or they concede the match. Naturally the opposing team will object to this notion, and they are also accumulating wealth and equipment. Equipment plays an important role in the game, since a significant portion of your hero's killing power will come from hoarding equipment.

Heroes of Newerth also has a PSR "Public Skill Rating" system, which allows you too gain Rating very similar too the way the Arena System works in World of Warcraft. HoN also provide KDR "Kill to Death Ratio" which shows your average kills, deaths and assists. This allows if your PSR is lower due too losing via playing with your friends, a chance too show that you are truly a skilled player.



*Graphics:* 9
*Sound:* 9
*Replay Value:* 8.5
*Value:* 8.75



The graphics are suburb, and the sounds take Heroes of Newerth to a whole new level of immersion to enhance competitive play. The booming voice over of the announcer at many important moments during each game, highlights achievements and objectives reached both by an individual and their team. The overall quality of the game is amazing and the immersive environment makes it fell like you are playing live in a competitive cyber sport. With an online community that provides full support, such as Add-Ons, Replays, Tournaments, Ladder stats and much more. Heroes of Newerth will become the new Mainstream replacement for the Classic DoTA.

*Review by*
_Jackie Moon_

----------


## Aldun

I like LoL (League of Legends) more tho. Same idea, less graphics, but way more fun gameplay and its free.
www.leagueoflegends.com
League of Legends

----------


## Viter

> I like LoL (League of Legends) more tho. Same idea, less graphics, but way more fun gameplay and its free.
> www.leagueoflegends.com
> League of Legends



yup to me the engine works alot better.

Hate the HoN engine.

----------


## Reflection

Downloading LoL as I can't bother buying HoN. I'll see how it is as I like HoN  :Smile: 

Great review!

----------


## The Maffyx

Way to copy and paste most of the review. Heroes of Newerth beta &#40;HoN&#41; review - a Defense of the Ancients &#40;DoTA&#41; clone - a game guide - Windows Live

----------


## Remus

> Way to copy and paste most of the review. Heroes of Newerth beta &#40;HoN&#41; review - a Defense of the Ancients &#40;DoTA&#41; clone - a game guide - Windows Live


That guy's review is better >.> mini articles are mini and provide little information to stuff; reviews are reviews about all aspects and detailed looks at everything. Albeit most reviews will be similar verbatim should not be done.

If you are going to take the time to write one up, do the above in excruciating detail, otherwise you are having others go to Google(to get more information) instead of making them stay here to get the information.(which btw is the way to generate users and interest beyond stop and drop.

----------


## Chrommie

I didnt really like HoN, I prefer LoL as its more unique.

----------


## LJN

I don't mind LoL but I like HoN better since its a lot more like dota. I think HoN as a lot potential with the map editor/sdk, dream (Make your own hero), and there full scale competitive support. But both games are great I just the competitive seen better :P

Also if your going to show a Hammerstorm replay use this: YouTube - Heroes of Newerth - Hammerstorm Gameplay

----------


## Jackie Moon

I'll make some extension's i'm currently playing Ladder. Will report how that mode is.

----------


## b1ink

Just downloaded LoL but my keyboard broke so I can't play yet :Frown:

----------


## Slickzz

Have been playing since closed beta. The game is actually enough interesting to buy it.

----------


## Greedy

Dota > HoN > LoL from a 5y Dota player.
On topic: I think HoN is a great game, didn't succeed to take over Dota but got a lot of attention and is growing rapidly in popularity. 1/10 Long-time dota players went for this game instead of Dota. If you haven't played dota, i suggest you to start playing HoN since it's very similiar, a bit more attractive, simplified compared to dota and lots of fun.

----------


## Forever

I have this game too and it's really a lot of fun to play together with friends. I had a beta-invite a few months ago so I've played a couple hundred games by now I think. Never played dota or anything like that (first time I joined the game I asked how I could build structures  :Big Grin: ). As I got to understand the game better it became a lot of fun though. 

You can play as several roles like 
- initiator (almost always the one starting battles with an ability)
- carry (usually weak in the beginning but has (often passive) abilities that increase dmg/atk speed/whatever with a certain % so you basically get more benefit out of items than other heroes. These will be the strongest later on.
- support, well these are mostly healers and stuff but also heroes with a good stun/slow can be considered support
- ganker, these are really a lot of fun to play imo as you basically run around the map for most of the time killing enemy heroes

There are some subroles too but not really too important for a noob  :Stick Out Tongue: 

If you have this game you should add me to friends my nick is Reverof, I live in CET timezone though and only play NL-EU-FR-DE-UK servers.

It's too bad there isn't a "free trial" anymore for this game because a lot of people never played a game like this. But I introduced this to a lot of friends and they all like it so I suggest you try it too  :Big Grin:

----------


## Slickzz

I really prefer the ganker, as it is a fun role to play. Also for that you get so damn many kills XD

----------


## tolana

First of all, HoN is *NOT* a RTS game. It's a MMOBA ( Massive Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) A new genre just for theese type of games.

When thats stated, I would say your review is very decent, but you miss some very important stuff.
The Basic Elements in HoN. as forever says it, The Initiator, carrier, Supporter and Ganker. 

When we have the 4 types of Heroes / playstyle, ( thats very important too, There are alot of heroes that can be played as both supporter or Carry.)
We can move on to the very unique part of HoN, The Tactics, And Teamplay, When theese 2 things are combined you have a very strong team, 

HoN is a game you can play for fun, together with friends.

But, it can be played on a very high skill niveua aswell.

with the Teamplay, and tactics combined, it gives a unique exsperience.

//Tolana

----------


## The Maffyx

> First of all, HoN is *NOT* a RTS game. It's a MMOBA ( Massive Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) A new genre just for theese type of games.
> 
> When thats stated, I would say your review is very decent, but you miss some very important stuff.
> The Basic Elements in HoN. as forever says it, The Initiator, carrier, Supporter and Ganker. 
> 
> When we have the 4 types of Heroes / playstyle, ( thats very important too, There are alot of heroes that can be played as both supporter or Carry.)
> We can move on to the very unique part of HoN, The Tactics, And Teamplay, When theese 2 things are combined you have a very strong team, 
> 
> HoN is a game you can play for fun, together with friends.
> ...


He missed this important stuff because he didn't write it, he probably doesn't even play it.

----------


## Jackie Moon

Add goingarachna, and yes I did write it. Please get your facts straight Maffyx.

----------


## The Maffyx

> Add goingarachna, and yes I did write it. Please get your facts straight Maffyx.


 Ah I see, you actually edited out the copypasta and paraphrased it, before most of the stuff came from the original link I posted. You could at least take your own screenshots.

----------


## Pandas334

My problem with HoN in comparison to LoL, its LoL has a lot more simplicity. If I wanted to read a manual before I play a game I'd play Dungeons and Dragons tabletop.

I think THE BIGGEST change HoN could do to make me interested, is extremely simple. Tone down the tooltips. For god sakes, its like a ****ing BOOK. I don't have a few minutes to understand what each ability does. I need to be able to glance at the tooltip if im going to be able to understand how to play a certain hero, not spend 5 minutes at the fountain trying to decide what to go first and the proper items to go.

 compared to

----------


## Tegi

I think this topic is mainly about personal opinion, please do notice that this is just my two cents.
I've played a good year of DoTA, learned the basics, played HoN closed and open beta, and have also tried League of Legends (for a few weeks now).

DoTA is awesome - nay - it was awesome 4 years ago, now time's just passed over it. Lack of customization and irritating graphics makes me say it's only for DoTA fanatics.

League of Legends has a great downside for me, that is it's graphics. It makes it goofy, really. My experience however should not be based on this, same as I don't judge a book by it's cover. However, LoL lacks certain things that I love about HoN, but they can be fixed still. Most of them are concerning matchmaking, ladder system, leaver protection and such.

The gameplay itself is imho oversimplified. Spells can be spammed without a care, and however weird that may sound, I miss denying. A good early game often separates a great player and a bad one in HoN or DoTA. In LoL it doesn't >really< make a difference, since you've just got to try to last hit the mobs, but if not ... what the heck ? There are really a lot of heroes in LoL, but some of them - to be honest a lot of them - they just don't really have a say against a decent enemy. That is an issue of balance, which of course can be solved, but I feel like the designers are in a bit of a debt already, so I don't know if they are able, or intend to fix it.

Another thing about LoL, which I don't know whether I should like or not, the marketing system. I'm not going into depths, but it's very great that it's free, but only free to an extent. Summoner spells and runes are supposed to make heroes versatile, but they just make it easier to faceroll. A blink for every hero ? Honestly, that justt baffles me.
If they were the same price, or similarly free I'd choose HoN over LoL any day, but LoL's great advantage is that it is initially free, and you can really try it out.

HoN is the perfect MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game for me, and I measure the others against it, and a thing that adds a great, great, great point to HoN that it is multiplatform. I really like Linux, I'm a fan of open source software, and while HoN may run better on DirectX, a natively runable game on Linux is a godsent.

However, I didn't buy HoN for two reasons. One: I am a cheap bastard. Two: Starcraft 2 is about to come out (in 70 days or so) which I anticipate to become the new Warcraft 3. If they manage to implement a great DoTA map it should be the best out of all of them, and while I think in MOBA terms HoN still takes the lead, Starcraft2 comes with an awesome map editor, and probably a load of other maps and game modes. I just wish it ran natively udner Linux.

Sorry for the wall of text, for some reason I really felt I'd like to share my opinion with you.

pandas334: The toopltips are almost the same if you don't consider the flavor text. And comparing a nuke ability with a skill that conditionally triggers, if you fall below a certain health threshold, and then you're immune to damege, instead it heals you. Well, I think the latter just might take an extra line or two to explain.

----------


## thebigman

only reason people hate hon is because they are too cheap to buy it. **** LoL


hooray hon

----------


## Pandas334

> pandas334: The toopltips are almost the same if you don't consider the flavor text. And comparing a nuke ability with a skill that conditionally triggers, if you fall below a certain health threshold, and then you're immune to damege, instead it heals you. Well, I think the latter just might take an extra line or two to explain.


See, thing is though is that all League tooltips are like that tooltip, and HoN tooltips are like that. It makes no difference between a nuke versus a multi-purpose ability. They decided to separate the actual numbers for the ability from what the ability as a whole does. Even while ignoring the lore in the tooltip, too much of the information you need is spread out. A tooltip should be concise and to the point, its not someplace to add story to the character.

----------


## Henessy

Oh, cool! It's DotA- 

NO WAIT IT'S JUST HON . 

I don't care if they _did_ get IceFrog's permission to copy the exact format of the original DotA map - It's still kind of gay.

----------


## olay198912

The reason that these heroes could be heroes is because apart from their outstanding qualities, they had common ground that they accomplished an earthshaking and very touching extraordinary history chapter.Welcome to moncler jacketsMoncler coatTrue Religion jeans

----------

