Defence Of The Ancients 2 (DOTA 2) is a 2013 free to play Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA) made by Valve and is available on Steam. It is based off its predecessor DOTA 1 and its heroes are based on Warcraft 3 characters.

 

History

DOTA started off as a fan made mod for the game Warcraft 3 by a person of the alias "Eul". Following the expansion of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, many DOTA clones were created and among them was DOTA:Allstars. It was the most popular one among all DOTA clones and it was created by Steve Feak. Steve soon retired from DOTA and was replaced by someone by the alias "IceFrog". Some of Valve's employee's were fans of the mod and they soon corresponded with IceFrog to discuss about the future of DOTA. Valve bought the rights for the acronym "DOTA" and years later DOTA 2 was released.   

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Gameplay

Every match involves two forces fighting each other, Radiant and Dire. Each side picks 5 heroes from 46 heroes available from the hero pool. The objective for both teams is to break down towers and progress until they reach a giant building called the "Ancient" and destroy it. The game has a lot of items, spells and heroes that players need to memorise in order to have a better understanding of their situation.

 

Competitive games only use the game mode called "Captain's Draft" instead. In this game mode, among the 5 players on 1 side, one of them is assigned as the captain. The duty of the captain is to ban heroes and select heroes for his team to use. Banning heroes makes them unavailable to be selected for both sides. In this case, having a wide knowledge of DOTA 2 is a must for a captain as he can "counter pick" the enemy team and create a synergy for his team.

 

Here is a footage of a match in DOTA 2. Just to give you an idea of how the game works. This is the final match of "The International 2011", Na'Vi VS EHOME.

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Review

DOTA 2 is like a love-hate relationship. Sometimes the game can be very enjoyable and fulfilling and other times it will induce rage into its players. Another reason for that analogy is because of the community in DOTA 2. Sometimes you find a good team with people that coordinate, know their stuff and are just a joy to play with but other times you could be paired with a team of incompetent fools whose only goal is to throw the game. The game really tests your reflexes, strategy and coordination with your team. The game also has servers prepared world wide, a feature that some multiplayer games cannot achieve. It is constantly patched and updated, so players have to learn new things and adapt to the changes every time. Overall, DOTA 2 is quite the fun game to play.