Rating: 5
Intro: Bloodline Champions is an arena PvP based game where the objective is to kill the opposing team. While an entertaining game it feels like something the publisher came up with to answer League of Legends with but failed miserably. That being said, it is an amusing diversion and children in particular may like its simplicity.
Publisher: Stunlock Studios
Player base: Low
Graphics: Medium
Type: MOBA
Exp Rate: High
PvP: Multiple Arenas
File size: 2GB
Pros: Skill-based play, Decent number of balanced archetypes, Friendly community.
Cons: Very repetitive, Bad matchmaking.
Storyline:
The Eternals believed that nobody should ever interfere with the natural world. In response to a renegade who fused himself into a mountain and opened the way for mortals to use magic, the Eternals decided to strip all magic from the lands. In the attempt to do so they created a Cataclysm that changed the world forever. In the time after the Cataclysm the peoples of the world changed, some for the better and some for the worse. The arenas are where the most primal battles take place. Two teams fight each other in a vicious battle to the death and only the strongest and most cunning warriors come out alive. These arenas lie spread across the world in holy temples long forgotten, high atop natural wonders honed by weathers embrace and in dangerous marshlands where no man dare tread.
Features:
Three different game modes: Arena (known as team deathmatch in other games), Capture The Artifact (aka Capture The Flag) and Conquest (map control point game mode). The game uses Solo and Team Matchmaking, supporting 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. Also there is game creating and joining, using a “lobby” system.
Rounds are fast-paced, last 2 minutes in matchmaking games and they are best of 5 to determine the overall winner and undetermined amount on custom games.
The game is purely skill-based: there is no targeting, no random damage and no “critical” hits; every ability requires aiming. Instead of using mana as in other similar games, Bloodline Champions uses cooldowns which have to be managed effectively.
There are four categories of bloodlines (character archetypes): melee attack, ranged attack, healer, and tank. There are currently 27 bloodlines, with six or seven in each category. Stunlock Studios have announced that they are working on new bloodlines. Each bloodline has seven abilities, two of which have an EX version, an enhanced version of the ability. Each has its own cooldown, as well as triggering short global cooldowns. The seventh ability is an “ultimate” ability that may only be used after gaining sufficient energy through executing other abilities successfully, such as healing allies, damaging enemies, and otherwise helping your team.
Bloodlines also have HP (Health Points) – when the champion runs out of HP, the champion dies, removing it from combat until the end of the round. Each champion also has two items that grant additional abilities. The Bloodline Medallion allows a champion to recover an increasing amount of HP over a period of time and Resurrect revives nearby fallen teammates. Both items require a significant amount of uninterrupted time to prepare, which makes them impractical in immediate combat. In Conquest and Capture The Artifact modes resurrection skill has been replaced with warp skill that allows you to warp a short distance every 20 seconds.
The controls in Bloodline Champions are similar to a first-person shooter, as the bloodline’s movement is controlled using the W, A, S, and D keys. The primary two abilities are mapped to the left and right mouse buttons, and the rest of the abilities are used with the Q, E, R, F, and space keys. Almost all the abilities are aimed, where the direction of the ability is determined by the position of the cursor on the screen relative to the champion’s position. There are two different camera modes; Free Look and Static. The static camera stays over the characters head at all times regardless of the location of the players cursor. The Free Look camera allows the player to control their camera with the cursor. A few defensive abilities are directed by hovering the cursor on the desired recipient, and some abilities target a specific location on the playing field.
Bloodline Champions also features fog of war which represents the areas of the map which cannot be seen due to visual obstruction or distance. There are obstacles on the map which create fog of war and inhibit movement. Champions have their own collision, which can be used to inhibit movement and protect allies (for example a tank bloodline will have a larger collision size, making it easier to defend teammates by blocking fire, but also being more susceptible to focus fire).
All in all, Bloodline champions is a well thought out game yet lacks the special something that makes a game awesome. It makes for a couple of weeks of fun but little else.