Hopefully these will get some of you started down the road of MOBA play. There's a more limited selection of champions to choose from, but more than 600 customizable items keep it interesting, along with daily challenge and alliance-based achievements. Classic team-based play is here, though SmashMuck looks and plays a bit differently than the other MOBAs listed above, with five different game modes that include a capture the flag mode, tower defense mode, control point capture and more. It's got a great sense of humor and some truly wacky design, and its creators cite its 'community driven development process' as a plus as well. Combat provides experience, which levels the character up, enabling players to imbue their Hero with better statistics and new skills.ĭota 2 has been criticized for having a steeper learning curve that League does, and my experience has been that the Mac client doesn't run very well on systems that are on the lower side of its system requirements, but that hasn't stopped it from being very popular: Dota 2 gets close to a million players at peak times.Ī relative new entry to the MOBA market, SmashMuck Champions lets you play as absolutely weird heroes like a robot shark and a platypus unicorn. Players have over 100 different Heroes to choose from, each with different strengths and weaknesses. The Ancient is a building inside each base that must be protected or you lose the game. Teams are divided into The Radiant and The Dire.

The classic elements of MOBA gameplay are here: Two teams of five players each, each of which occupy a base at a corner of the map. As a result, it's available for download from Valve's popular Steam online game matching and download service. Dota 2 is its proper sequel, developed by Valve Corp. I mentioned Defense of the Ancients at the outset. Riot makes money from the sale of Riot Points (RP), which help players get ahead in the game. League is the focus of professional gaming tournaments, too. And it's paid off: At peak times, more than 7 million players can be playing simultaneously. A variety of game modes exist and Riot is constantly improving and tweaking both gameplay and the in-game characters, which leads to constant new challenges.

Players fight each other to gain experience and to win gold, which they can use to buy items to strengthen their champions.

League comprised well more than 100 different champions, each with different strengths, strategies and weaknesses. (Don't be scared off by the seemingly permanent 'beta' status of the Mac client.) For a long time Mac gamers were left out of the loop but the developer finally graced the Mac with a client in 2013. Since it debuted in 2009 it's garnered millions of fans worldwide.

Riot Games' League of Legends is nothing short of a phenomenon.

Independent games for mac