The MOBA genre has come a long way since the Warcraft 3 days. DotA (Defense of the Ancients) kicked the entire movement into motion and since then millions of players take each other on in 5v5 battle arenas all over the internet.
The newest innovation of the popular genre comes from Hi-Rez studios in the form of Smite: Battleground of the Gods.
The major difference between Smite and the rest of the MOBAs out there is the third person perspective. While HoN (Heroes of Newerth), LoL (League of Legends) and DotA 2 keep their games the status quo a top down partially askew point and click interface, Smite takes a brand new approach which makes the game unique.
Smite uses the W, A, S, and D keys to move the character and the 1, 2, 3, and 4 number keys to use abilities as well as the mouse to attack and aim spells. Similar to the way World of Warcraft’s interface is.
There are currently 28 playable characters in Smite which are deities from different religions. Some of the Gods are widely known like Hades, Thor, Zues and Ra. Others a bit more obscure like Yimir the Norse “Father of the Frost Giants,” Agni the Hindu “God of Fire” and Sun Wukong the Chinese “Monkey King” to name a few.
Each god varies in his/her abilities and roles. Thor’s “Anvil of Dawn” sends him airborne briefly to survey the battlefield followed by a quick dash to the ground where he stuns all enemies and deals a huge amount of damage, or if in danger the ability can be used to flee.
Smite provides several different modes of gameplay. The first is the standard three lane battleground mode named “Conquest” to which any MOBA player is accustomed, the second mode of play is “Arena” where all five players from each team meet in the center of an arena to see who the victor is, the third gameplay mode is “Domination” a king of the hill style game mode where teams battle over three territories in order to win and the final game mode named “Joust” where two players fight 1v1 to see who is superior.
There is a random battleground each day with different rules. Some of the past daily events include “Men vs. Women” where player randomly get assigned to a team where they can either be only male or female characters, “Good Day Sunshine” a game mode where everyone plays as “The Sun King”, etc.
The final game mode is the “Ranked Conquest” where players compete for rank points. Players can look up who is ranked #1 in the entire game through the in-game “Stats” menu and try to reach that pinnacle for themselves.
Although Smite is still in beta, it provides all the small things which make a game great. If you find yourself mid yell when you die and pump your fist when you win a close game it means you are hooked. Grab a friend, pick a God and join the fun.
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