Gaming

As soon as we mention PC games, League of Legends shows first on the list.

During approximately 10 years, “LoL” has been one of the most highly recognized video games in the industry, being called multiple times the best MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) of all times.
Many other similar video games has appeared during the years to try to overcome the popularity of this game but none of them have succeed to the point of overlapping it.

But, why is that really? Well, there is no simple answer for that because there are so many different reasons which we will talk about here:

Free to Play

It is free, you don´t ever need to pay anything to play the game!

The performance of the game on PCs

The main reason of League of Legends being a game with so many people logging in to play it everyday (more than 20 millions daily in average!) Is first of all the great performance of the game, even on fairly old PCs.
As long as you have an average desktop PC you should be able to run it on at least 30-60 FPS on low settings.
In case you have a laptop instead, it will surely perform worse compared to a desktop but most likely you will still be able to run it.
The best thing about all of this is that the game requires, if anything, a good FPS average value for you to be able to play it perfectly, but you don´t really get advantages of getting better graphics when it comes to trying to beat the other players in game, which is not the usual case for many other video games out there, so that´s great!
If you are looking to play it on the highest settings possible and to be able to run it on steady 120 or 144 FPS, which is what most pro-gaming monitors of today use, you might need some expensive graphic card but even then, it´s not so bad. For example, if you have a GTX 1050 Ti (currently around 130$) that will be able to run it without much hassle.
If you are wondering how much FPS would be able to run a typical, standard monitor of today, that number is most likely to be 60 FPS, which you would easily reach with a GT 1030 (which is around 90$ on the market).

A wide choice of servers

Whether you are playing from one side or other in the world, you will most likely always have a nearby server to play with a decent latency on! Currently, there are more than 10 locations available placed strategically all over the world.

The huge amount of choices

There is literally more than 100 champions available for all players!
You will need to unlock them all one by one by using “Blue Essence” which you will gain just by playing the game, but don´t worry if you don´t have enough initially for many champions because there are 10 free champions rotating every week, so that you always have something new to try!
There are different types of champions depending of the likes of each person. You might like to play a tank and be able to absorb a lot of damage from the enemies while keeping them busy from killing your squishier allies, or you might like a mage that unleashes powerful magic to destroy his enemies!
Perhaps you are a simple type and you just like doing constant damage, then your role is the marksman, or often said “AD-Carry” which comes from “Attack Damage Carry”. It could be that you just like doing considerable damage while being able to survive for a respectable amount of time, then we recommend you the Warrior role, or as some people usually call it, the “Off-tank”

Attractive customization, but not a “Pay to Win”

The way of income of the game for the most part is “Riot Points” or usually called, RP.
Riot Points are only obtainable through payments and allow you to buy champions, icons… and skins for the champions you like! But the greatest thing of this system is that anything that you can buy doesn´t involve any advantage in game against players, so it keeps the fairness in the matches.

The ranking system

There are many different ranks on the game which are based on your skill, depending of how much games you are able to carry your team compared to the ones you lose. But if you got a few friends for playing ranked all together, no worries because there is a special gamemode for that! It´s called Ranked “Flex”
If you get to the top of the ranking, which is usually considered to be the ranks “Master”, “Grandmaster” and “Challenger” being the highest of all the ranks, you could get attention in the ladder, and you might even be invited to a high-level professional team!

The esports scene

There has been many presidential tournaments with players from all around the world where people go watch just like they go watch football matches or basketball games. But, instead of players chasing after a ball they are all watching a huge screen where the game is nicely shown while the players are usually playing below the huge screen/screens.
Real money gets involved here! There are many players that have made a few millions out of tournaments and competitive professional games. Amazing, right? Out of the many legends of the game out there, there is the widely known now “Faker” which has gotten the World Championship multiple times, and its a South-Korean player.
Ironically, South Korea being one of the most little regions compared to some others like Europe or North-America, often keeps the lead in the worldwide rankings in pro-play. There are hundreds of players and teams out there competing everyday to reach the top, the highest point they can be in the game.

Would you like to try the game yourself? You only need to create and account and download the client on their official web pages, but make sure you choose to create your account in a server that is close to you, so for example if you are from Europe you could choose EUW,EUNE or RU as regions, and if you are from America you could choose NA,LAS or LAN as regions!
Good luck and remember, respect your allies and have lots of fun, it´s the most important part!

Regardless if you loved or hated The Division, the hype for The Division 2 is real. Everyone hoped the second installment in the franchise to undo the wrongs and make it the game it was supposed to be in the beginning. At the same time, after a rather poor first half of the year with so many disappointments in terms of new releases, The Division 2 does not seem to have a lot of competition. Did it manage to overcome the legacy of an incomplete and repetitive game that the first one proved to be? Let’s dwell deeper into that.

The Campaign

The Division 2 kicks off things in a much better tone. It gets more things right that it does wrong. The story picks up where it was left in The Division but with more gameplay mechanics and an improved urban environment.

Progression offers much more rewards in the form of loot and new activities. The missions are well crafted and gun-play is much more rewarding and engaging. This time around, there are fewer side missions and random content that is meant to just add more hours to the campaign. The main campaign itself is longer and the plot and story are much more interesting to say the least. Overall, there are about 20+ hours of campaign to enjoy.

Some might argue that there is no story in the game, but the reality is a bit different. Even if there is no emotional attachment to be developed with any of the characters, they all contribute in building a rather believable western world city. Washington DC is now a war zone and the player needs to do his part to keep things under control and retrieve a cure for the virus from The Division, which is now in the possession of the president of the US.

The End Game

Once the main campaign is completed, the game opens up. Washington DC becomes a playground filled with objectives and challenges that reward players with plenty of loot. Some of the loot mechanics have been preserved but there are more ways to obtain new gear.
This time around, the player will have to choose one out of three classes which also gets it specialized weapon. The game calls them specializations and they all play an important role in terms of mechanics and team play.

Division 2 does not make any compromises and PVP has not been neglected. We have the Dark Zone 2 and an official clan system. The clan system does make things easier when it comes to raids and Dark Zone runs.

Throughout the city, a total of 52 bosses have been added that will spawn randomly and drop world tier loot. These random bosses make it possible even for solo players to get some end-game gear without having to go for organized raids.

As far as activities go, we have several worth mentioning. Invaded missions are probably the first type of end-game content that players will experience. Completed missions from the campaign will turn red on the map and the player can complete them again but on a higher difficulty level and for better loot.
Strongholds are another source of gear. They take longer to complete and have multiple bosses. These missions are accessible only after certain Invaded missions are completed.
Raids are the most challenging ways of getting loot. Just like in the original game, they are difficult, rewarding and are fun due to the mechanics they bring into the game.

What Is Not So Great…

If there is one thing that we wish would have been better is the boss fights. Sadly, bosses are basically regular enemies but with much larger health pools. Basically, they are bullet sponges. It would have made the game a bit better if bosses had they own abilities and mechanics which would make their large health pools seem trivial.

There are also some rather weird things happening when it comes to gear score. Some difficult missions appear to offer loot of lower item score than much fewer challenging activities. What is important to know is that item score matters but not that much. It is important to keep a close eye on stats and synergies.

Last but not least, the biggest disappointment is the Dark Zone. There isn’t much to do except for skirmishes with other players and hunt the occasional boss. Players will camp each other but the gear normalization mechanic makes things less unfair for the ones that might not be all that prepared for PVP.

Worth Investing Time and Money?

The Division 2 certainly offers at least 30 to 40 hours of gameplay including the campaign and some end-game content. While the campaign does not have any replay value, end-game content should keep the player engaged to fine tune his gear and prepare for the challenging raids. The progression system is good and keeps things going at least to the level that the player will feel motivated to play the same mission over and over to get that special piece of gear to complete his setup.

Overall The Division is a better game but it is not perfect. It surely has a much solid base on top of which Massive Entertainment can add more mechanics and engaging DLCs to keep the players busy. At this stage of the game, it surely is worth spending the money and probably, the DLCs will be worth it too. There are still some things that are just as bad as they were in the original game, but the developers do seem to understand some of the aspects that players complained about.

What is left now is to see if The Division 2 will survive the test of time or it will experience the same massive player base drop after just a few months. If Massive Entertainment gets things right and times their DLC releases properly, players will not get the occasion to get bored or just abandon the game because there is nothing left to do. Hopefully that will not be the case as The Division 2 is much more promising that is predecessor and truth be told, there is not much competition when it comes to this type of action-packed loot-based shooters with RPG elements.