Rise of The Immortals - First Impressions

First and foremost, let me be 100% Honest: I love League of Legends. I've played Heroes of Newarth and I was in both the Alpha and the first round of Beta in Realm of the Titans. But deep down, I like LoL the best. I still play HoN and RoT, but I'm a LoL guy. That being said, I remember the old DoTA days and so I don't rage at always having to find a lobby and things like that. I'm relatively lenient on how I compare similar games. I don't complain about two characters being similar and stupid stuff like that. I love ALL MOBA's for what they bring to the table.

So, it came to my attention that there is a new MOBA that just came into it's first official release. Rise of the Immortals (RoI) is a MOBA that is designed in the same vein as LoL. The characters look similar to HoN's, but it has a graphic flair all to it's own. There are only 15 Immortals available right now, but Petroglyph already has announced another new Immortal and have many more on the way. The biggest difference, and, for lack of a better word, gimmick to the game, is it's Social Hub. This allows you to pick your immortal and go to a hub where you can talk to other players, sort of like a starting city in an MMO. It's not very big and it's basically everyone dancing in front of the tree, waiting to get into a game, but it's a nifty, albeit novelty, feature.

So, the positives first:

• The graphics are FANTASTIC for this game. I'm not a fan of the particular art style, but I have to admit, it's a bright, vivid game with no two Immortals even remotely alike. That's partially because of a lack of them, but it's brand new and should be forgiven.
  
• The game has a great tutorial, on par with LoL's Tutorial, which is the best. Say what you don't like about the game, it's got a damn good tutorial.
  
• The voices aren't half bad. I REALLY like a lot of them.
  
• And the champions are well balanced and have fun abilities.

Now, the bad. And I hate to say it, there's a lot.

• First and foremost: 20 minute wait for a game. I waited 20 minutes to get into a game. I've never had THAT kind of trouble getting into any other MOBA's Lobbies! Even DoTA was easier to do AND faster.
  
• The game is definitely in need of some star power. There's no...well, drive to play any of the characters. They all look generic and are kind of boring. I love their playstyle, but the models are kind of boring.
  
• Apparently, anything can be bought with money in this game. And I do mean ANYTHING.
  
• There's a 5th Ability for every Immortal, they're "signature move." Think like a 2nd Ultimate and you get the jist. However, only once you've reached level 21 with that character and leveled up their branch do you gain access to it. This is very frustrating, since matchmaking isn't exactly friendly, since 90% of the people that new people play against are a good 5 to 20 levels above you.
  
• Honestly, the "Social Hub" is just kind of dumb. This is my personal opinion, and I know there are some that will love this feature, but I personally hate it. I come from Old-School DoTA players and the old-age of LoL players. We don't WANT to see everyone on the server, we just want to play. Give me a big ass "Play" or "Join" button and I'm happy.
  
• Now, I know I said earlier that 15 champs is forgivable. It WOULD be MORE forgivable, if DoTA 2 didn't already have 30 Champions planned for it's first public release. And while it has a better original source to draw from, we all know that we want LOTS of Characters, lol.

All in all, Rise of the Immortals falls short of other MOBAs. It's very similar to the others, most notably, LoL, but it's just not as GOOD as any of them. Give RotI some time to develop before giving a serious thought...and pray you got into the beta of DoTA 2, lol.