Heroes of Newerth is a game I’ve been hearing hype about for a long time…and I finally got to try it out for myself yesterday. (You can too, click here to check out the giveaway!)

The premise of the game is this:  Two teams of computer controlled “creeps” run along a pre-determined pathway toward the opponent’s base, attacking each other.  Each pathway is protected by three defensive towers – two in each path and one where the path joins with the base itself.  You play as a single “Hero” character, who runs around attacking the enemy creeps, and other enemy heroes.  The object of the game is to destroy the main building within the enemy team’s base, but of course the enemy team is trying to do the exact same thing to you.

To anyone who has played the Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients, this should sound intimately familiar.  In fact, if you are familiar with DotA at all, you will find yourself immediately at home with HoN.  S2 Games is calling Heroes of Newerth “heavily inspired by the popular Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients” and not to disparage their hard work, but this feels like a bit of an understatement.

HoN is essentially DotA 2.0.  It is almost entirely the same game albeit with vastly improved graphics, a new engine, client/server architecture to eliminate cheating, and built in voice chat.  This may seem like quite a few changes, but the essence of the game, the nitty-gritty gameplay is almost exactly the same.  Many of the heroes in HoN are DotA heroes, with the exact same skills.  The items available for purchase are mostly the same, and the store locations are in the same spots.  Heroes level in the same manner, and the maximum achievable level is the same.  You may be wondering, why would I even want to play Heroes of Newerth?  Why not just boot up a game of DotA?  This is the question S2 Games has to answer in order to ensure the success of HoN.  From what I’ve seen, it seems like they’re answering it pretty well.

Once you get over how similar HoN is to DotA, you start to notice the little differences that make it a much more enjoyable total experience.  DotA is an aging game, built on an extremely old Warcraft III engine.  The mod’s creators have done an incredible job with the tools they had, but there is only so much you can do on such an old platform.  Warcraft III doesn’t even offer widescreen support!  Heroes of Newerth steps in offering a fully contained package.  It has a built in ranking system, game-leaver detection, the ability to rejoin games in case you accidentally get disconnected, an extremely easy to use quick-join mode, and a great game browser, allowing users to create games only accessible to users who have their desired specifications. The DotA community is not known for it’s kindness to new players, so I think this feature will be incredibly useful in HoN.  No more will you stumble into a group of l33t pwnzorz, who will berate you and call you a huge noob, screaming expletives at you when you mess up, as those l33t pwnzorz can create their own games, locking you out if you have a low ranking.

For those of you who are DotA fans, I’ve brought in our resident DotA expert, Anzix, who has been playing HoN for quite some time now.  I asked him a few questions about the game:  

GR: “As an experienced DotA player, why would you make the switch to HoN?”

Anzix: “With Heroes of Newerth, S2Games took the fundamentals of DotA and polished them into a full featured game that raises the bar even further. Features such as matchmaking, player statistics, and ladder rankings will only fuel online competition thus providing an even more competitive community. And I want to go to where the competition is.”

GR: “Do you think the DotA community will embrace HoN upon release?”

Anzix: “The sheer number of players online at any given time during the HoN closed beta shows there is a strong interest, and with future improvements the interest will only grow. Competition is great for everyone, and will only provide a better experience for the players.

GR: “What is your favorite thing about HoN that is new to HoN, and not seen in DotA?”

Anzix:  “The game engine – simply put it provides a whole new element to HoN that DOTA did not have. Players always sought out third party applications (i.e. Ventrilo, Banlist, Listchecker…etc) in order to add additional functionality to DOTA that was lacking from the WC3 engine, and with HoN these tools are no longer needed.”

There you have it!  Be sure to check out our beta key giveaway in the forums so you can see for yourself what HoN is all about.