I'm going to go on the record and say that I loves me some Massive Online Battle Arena (hereafter refered to as MOBA).
It started with Demigod, which was ultrafun, and then there was the various DotA clones on Warcraft III's Battle.net. I stopped for a while - Demigod, while a great game, was getting a bit boring, and I lost my Warcraft III keys.
But then a friend told me about League of Legends, and my love for the genre was renewed again.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: League of Legends is pretty much perfect. The more I think about that statement, the more true it becomes for me. Riot Games have been pushing the genre forward in ways none of the other DotA's have been (in my opinion), especially with the recent addition of Dominion.
So, because I love me some MOBA, I tried some other MOBAs. Specifically, Rise of the Titans, Rise of Immortals, Heroes of Newerth, and Bloodline Champions. Maybe we'll get to the other three on a later date, but right now I want to talk about the last one on that list.
Bloodline Champions, like all the MOBA's mentioned (aside from Demigod) is a free-to-play microtransactions game. But what sets BC apart from every single other MOBA game ever is it's controls.
To move, you use the W-A-S-D keys. I'll give you a second to re-read that again.
This is a massive problem. The mouse is fluid, and allows precision. Making me use the W-A-S-D keys for movement in a top down view game makes me feel like I'm driving a goddamn tank. But I'm not, I'm driving people, which makes it seem stiff and unnatural.
And then you've got the attacks. Left-click for a basic attack, Right-click for a different attack. I was playing the Igniter during the tutorial level. Using the W-A-S-D keys was bad enough, but using them as well as the mouse for basic attacks was just wierd, and then I had to use Q, E, R and I think Z and F (I could be wrong, all I remember was they were in a stupid place) for all my abilities, which just feels so awkward.
I have no idea what they were thinking. Maybe they were trying to be innovative, but it's stupid innovation. I felt like I was driving a lumbering hunk of steel, not controlling a living, breathing thing. I didn't play any more after the tutorial.
And looking through the Bloodline Champions site, they have some really fascinating heroes, with interesting abilities. Too bad the game's control scheme is too alien for me to get used to.
