Hands-on with Smite Early Access on Xbox One

I’ve always met MOBA’s with a fair bit of trepidation, as I’m sure many do.

Being a console gamer almost my entire life, I didn’t really find MOBA’s to be that accessible. The keyboard with its many, many (seemingly endless) buttons and attacks, and the mouse well, it’s just not a controller now, is it? Before you get all up in my face about it, let me add a disclaimer. I’ve been a console gamer for 25 years. That’s a quarter of a century, young’un. I’ve spent a quarter of a hundred years sitting with my legs crossed and a controller in my hand. Making me play with a keyboard and mouse is like trying to teach this old dog how to write in cursive using only a pencil held between my butt cheeks.

However, I feel games like Diablo 3 have helped span that breach a little, bringing the MOBA/MMORPG feel to console has certainly helped ease me into what in all honestly is likely to be an incredibly addictive pastime.

And I ended up with a pre-release code for Smite almost entirely by chance. I’d actually had no idea that Smite was even coming to Xbox One (I’ve been so out of the loop with gaming, to my shame, but hey, my life has been crazy these last few months!). However, I got a Twitter message from the esteemed Mr @RealENGDragon saying he’d accidentally got an extra code, and would I like it? Not being one to turn down a free code for any kind of game, I accepted most graciously, and now I owe him my first-born child and the toes of my left foot.

MOBA’s are massive. With the likes of League of Legends and Dota2 dominating competitive e-sports, Smite is very similar to both. Being a novice at both those games, a MOBA on console seemed it might be worth my time. Was I wrong?

I think the first thing that strikes any new player to MOBA’s is how much new stuff there is to learn. It’s incredibly daunting. Especially with a vast roster of characters to play with, each with their own moves. The Early Access grants one free character for every type, mage, warrior etc, so you can get to grips with a play-style which suits you. For example, I’ve come to realise over the last couple of months, I quite like playing ranged characters, and don’t much like being in the thick of the action, which makes me think a mage or support character will be right up my street.

Helpfully, the game automatically picks the equipment from the store for you as you play, so you don’t have to worry too much about whether you’re getting the right weapons, armours and buffs, until you’re level 5 or higher. Hopefully this leaves more time for you to actually get to grips with the game and how to play. Considering I’m already level 5 and still just as daunted as when I began, we’ll have to see how the hammer falls.

A basic tutorial explains your objective and how to attack and use your abilities. In some ways, it’s pretty self explanatory, of course the left stick moves your character (what do you think I am, stupid?) and I ended up learning more by doing, than reading what was on screen and listening to the narrator. It also helped that I also had a basic gist of what was expected of me from watching a lot of League of Legends streams on Twitch.

Generally, you control your character, take down enemy towers along the left, middle or right ‘lanes’, earn buffs from the camps along the ‘jungle’ lane, and attack the enemy Titan at the front of the enemy’s spawn point, all while earning XP from killing enemy minions which level you up, and cash which you use to buy consumables and equipment for your God which is only used in that one game.

Most often in MOBA’s, people assign themselves a lane to run, and stick to it, only deviating when needed in other lanes to defend or help earn buffs from jungle camps.

So it’s a pretty simple premise. The real game play comes from good team work, and strategy, and much of that is learnt from figuring out your God’s strengths. The Gods are based on mythological beings too, so that was something that appealed to me early on, as I love me some ancient mythology. From the small available roster of free Gods you get a good variety of play-styles to try, and you can unlock or buy more.

Yes. Unlock or buy. And the disparity between the prices of unlocking by using favour or using IGP (In Game Purchase) gems might seem high, but it’s pretty easy to earn favour, and I’ve unlocked 2 new Gods in the space of about 4 games. Some Gods are around 500 Favour (which you can earn in one game alone, if you’re good enough) to more than 5000. Seeing as you earn Favour every day just by logging in, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be raking it in before long anyway.

If you’re not too sure whether you want to buy a God, or want to try it out, you can ‘Rent’ Gods, also.

But how did I get on?

Well I’ve had a good go at pretty much every mode going, and used a fair few different Gods.

Naturally, playing Co-op with other Xbox Live users against AI enemies was a good place to start. This helped me build up my own style, figure out which lane I felt most comfortable in (turns out I’m a left/top laner, who knew?) and generally learn how to play the game. It also helped me figure out which enemy Gods have which moves, and how I can take them down. It was a good little confidence building exercise. I found my stride quite quickly, something I wasn’t able to do with PC MOBA’s, and began to find myself really enjoying it.

The more you play, the more you begin to understand why some Asian countries have held funerals for people who have played these kinds of games for days at a time with no sleep or food.
I also begun to understand how there are ‘phases’ to this game too.

Once spawning at the start of the game, I found myself getting into a habit of getting into my lane, protecting it with wards (which show you enemy movement in your territories on the map which last for a finite length of time) until minions (smaller AI enemies, used as attack fodder which bolsters your XP and cash) spawn.

Sticking behind your own minions while running up the lane is important as you approach enemy towers (these need to be taken out along the way to the enemy Titan) because they can pack a punch early level, and your minions are there to be disposable. Taking out the enemy minions and earning cash enables you to go back to base, use the store, and utilize the gold to purchase items that make your God stronger. Earn more gold faster than the other team to get better gear before them. This is where the game begins to get exciting, especially when the ‘ganks’ begin. Early game ganks can sometimes set the game up for an easy win. Ganks are basically group attacks on an unsuspecting enemy, often completely obliterating them. The reward yield for killing a God over small minions is often much higher, and can start to build up a gold lead very early on in the game.

The next phase of the game once you’re levelled up is taking out the enemy towers. This is referred to as the middle, or mid game. These will be defended by it’s own attacks and minions, but generally an enemy God will appear to put you in your place as well. You’ll often find yourself falling back to either heal, or return to the base (by holding down on the D-pad) to raid the store (by pressing left on the D-pad). You can’t hang around towers too long as their attacks are quite powerful and you can only stick about as long as you’re not it’s primary target. They can take out the unwary God before you realise it, and then it’s back to respawning for a certain amount of time. Mid game is where you begin to get engaged in the game, you have a more clear objective, and pushing lanes begins to feel more rewarding.

Between the lanes are jungle areas, which contain camps. The camps hold slightly harder, stationary enemies who drop buffs to strength, mana, speed, as well as gold and XP. Getting some of these early on can provide a nice boost, and generally one player will take on the role as a ‘Jungler’, someone who focuses on taking down the minions and earning the boosts. However the buffs are not spread between all the players, so picking one up will only benefit you. Try not to be a hog, as good team work is essential to winning a game.

Late game is generally where the action happens. You’ve levelled up (the God level cap is 20), you’re geared up, you’ve taken out most, if not all of the towers along the way. Now is generally the time is unsafe to be wandering about alone. If other Gods are just as prepared as you, they’ll be at least working in pairs (with a fifth lone player soaking up jungle kills and earning buffs and gold). Getting caught unawares means you’re toast. The late game phase is often where you’re getting almost entire team dust ups, and if you happen to pop off an ‘Ultimate’ on a group of enemy Gods, you’re pretty much free to raid their base, kill their Phoenixes (basically hardier form of towers) and take down their Titan while they’re sitting gnashing their teeth in the respawn phase (which is almost a minute in late game).

I know that seems like an awful lot to remember, but generally the game just flows that way. There’s no way as an early level God you’ll be pushing for taking the towers down, because you’re too weak. The same way as when you’re high level, you don’t really bother pushing for jungle kills, because you’re already powerful enough that the buffs are superfluous.

And the above match is just a general Conquest match, the ‘normal’ match people would often play.

There are others to try.

Arena mode is a 5v5 free for all, no lanes, no real objectives, just kill the enemy teams on sight. At the same time, protect your team ticket count, by not dying and not letting minions reach the portal.

Siege mode is similar to Conquest, its on a smaller map, and is for 1-3 players on each team. Earn points, score kills to spawn a siege weapon which you can lead down the lanes to do some serious damage.

Joust mode is a 3v3 small map, first team to kill the enemy Titan is the victor! One lane, surrounded by Jungle camps.

Unsurprisingly, Smite is ridiculously addictive. Just sitting here writing this over the course of a couple of hours has left me feeling like I could maybe have one more game?

I did find my first couple of games pretty hard going, especially when figuring out what my role was within the team, and the realization that I didn’t know what I was doing and everyone else did, was a sour one. This is often so when you’re in a lane frequented by at least two Gods who know what they’re doing and how to use their Gods abilities, and you’re running around just using your basic RT attack and smiling in that fearful way where you’re imploring them to not turn your backside into some kind of tanning rack.

Learning which buttons did what was a lesson I had to take to heart quickly, as when you’re laning and need to upgrade your attacks, pressing LB and the corresponding ABXY to do it isn’t always the most intuitive to a console gamer. But HEY, this is why porting MOBA’s to console and mapping the controls to a gamepad is hard, they have limited space to work with, and I think they did their best. It’ll just take some time to remember everything.

One of the most fun MOBA experiences I’ve ever had to be perfectly honest with you, this free-to-play offering will likely only help to push Smite to a wider and hopefully accepting audience. For those PC players, you can also carry over your progress once the full game launches. I’m definitely going to be playing a lot more of this.

Lastly, should you wish to come gank me from all sides, add me on Xbox Live: yoghurt chops.
I’ll be waiting for you in the arena…