If you’re familiar with the genre, I’m sure you’ll think I’m doing it a disservice when I describe it as a multiplayer online battle arena game where you mash a lot of buttons to try to kill enemies, hoping your cooldown periods are shorter than that of your opponents. Oh yeah, and with three lanes than can run down in order to mash said buttons, alongside NPCs that are easy to kill and towers that are the complete opposite.
Warner Bros. has made one where I can be, like, fifteen different versions of Batman. Yet, I repeat: if I were to play a MOBA regularly, I think SMITE would be the one I went with.
It also bears repeating that I won’t be doing that.
That typical MOBA description works with SMITE, but one small change flips the genre on its head: rather than giving you a top-down, omnipresent view, you tackle developer Hi-Rez’s effort in third-person. You’re right amongst the action as you run down a path and slaughter minions before the smashing of buttons against real opponents.
Surprisingly, the setup on Xbox One does wonders with the multi-buttoned input method in use on Windows PCs. Using the controller to run around, launch attacks and control where my hits were landing seemed surprisingly easy. That was driven home even moreso when when shown a keyboard map from the PC version. Nothing felt out of place on the controller, and everything was admittedly easy to learn.
While learning inputs was easy, learning the real way to play the game was not. In my time with SMITE, I was shown skill tree upon skill tree and coached on what equipment could and should be used to buff this, protect against that and so on. It proved a little too much. In the same sense, in most of the times I played, I was crushed. My team was usually full of casuals who played exactly as I described — spamming attacks, waiting for their cooldowns and using ’em again. Other teams featured well-oiled units who used specials co-operatively to decimate the unknowing.
The truth is this: if you want to really want to get the most out of SMITE, you’re going to have to party up with a group of people who communicate. A group who know what the strengths and weaknesses are for each God, and who know how to work with you to chain abilities together for maximum kills. If you can find such a group, then more power to you. If you’re an experienced MOBA veteran, you’ll probably have an easier time with this, but the real question is whether or not you’ll swap over from your game of choice to SMITE. I don’t think veterans will unless they’re eyeing up prize money offered through the Xbox-sponsored World Championships.
Anyways, back to us n00bs. While the game offers up standard (though third-person) fare, its Arena mode is for the casual folk like myself. Lanes are done away with. Opponents are thrown into a big bowl… and then, everyone has at it. Plain. Simple. Effective.
Those who’re highly-killed and want to invest time can take off the training wheels, spending their earned skill points on new techniques and weaponry. Those who can’t be bothered can auto-level and head back to casual games involving a bit of patience and a lot of button mashing.
While playing, I was told Hi-Rez was careful to balance out new characters – new Gods are added every fortnight – but the newbie in me just wasn’t seeing it. Playing on the free version of my game, with access to only a limited number of characters, I played Ra, a ranged magical characters who shot out his powers in very particular, extremely hard to master ways. On the other hand, those who’ve pumped money into the game get to pick whatever God they’d like, and in turn can kick you ass due to convenience and, most likely, experience. As a result, I can’t help but feel that SMITE is a little more pay-to-win than free-to-play than Hi-Rez is willing to admit.
Nevertheless, of all the MOBAs I’ve played – and usually loathed – SMITE was the most-user friendly and the one I could see myself growing to like if I forced myself to sit down and play for multiple, multiple hours. That doesn’t mean I will though — I would prefer to spend my time with the likes of Destiny, Assassin’s Creed and other decidedly non-MOBA titles. I believe genre fans will find SMITE too vanilla, and those who develop a taste for MOBAs through the game will ultimately move on to bigger, more popular offerings in the same vein.
At the end of the day, SMITE is available now on PC and on Xbox One, so you’ve plenty of opportunity to check it out for yourself and see what you think. And hell, with World Championships sponsored by Xbox and headlining events like PAX AUS, those of who you want to immerse yourselves in the game might be able to “get gud” and walk away an eSports champion, eh?
SMITE was reviewed using an early access code and Founder’s Pack on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher. We didn’t opt for the Founder’s Pack to properly mimic a normal user’s free-to-play experience. This review was largely based on our preview, written during SMITE‘s early access period on Xbox One.
