GAMES

First two stills from EA and Crytek’s 2010 shooter, Crysis 2. My gratitude to any commenters who can locate the New York City locales shown here. A star if you take a photo that matches either shot (sans guns/soldiers/violence).

Tired of stodgy corporate games made by The Man and his minions? We’re playing the 31 best indie games for a change of pace —- and so we can judge them. Today, Heroes of Newerth.

In A Sentence
Inspired by the incredibly popular Defense of the Ancients Warcraft III fan mod, Heroes of Newerth is an online-only multiplayer action strategy game that has you controlling a hero to help defend your base and destroy your enemy’s.

State Of Completion
The PC game is currently in beta.

Thoughts
Like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth is a stand-alone online-only take on Defense of the Ancients.

In the game, players control a hero among a team of player-controlled heroes, assisting little automated units as they try to take out the other team of heroes’ base. As you play a match you can use experience and gold to level up, add abilities and purchase items.

HON includes 60 heroes to choose from, each of which can take quite awhile to master, so it’s a game that you’re sure to enjoy for quite awhile, if you’re into the basic premise.

Answers We Demanded
Kotaku: What was the inspiration behind your game?

James Fielding, Lead Designer on Heroes of Newerth: Heroes of Newerth was inspired by DotA – All Stars. We’re huge DotA fans at S2, and saw its potential. We wanted to make a game that seized that potential and really launched that style of gameplay to new heights. That’s where the gameplay inspiration comes from, anyway. We have certainly taken the gameplay in new directions as well, with new mechanics, but our visuals are definitely worth mentioning here as well. The inspiration for our art comes from a variety of sources – we’re all a bit nerdy, so often when brain storming visuals for heroes we reference a ton of “nerdy” culture, quite often from our favorite books, TV shows, and movies.

Kotaku: Name your favorite book, movie, album and game.

Fielding: – Favorite book is probably a series of books – the Wheel of Time series. I’m still making my way through them actually, but really enjoying it.

- Favorite movie is probably The Shawshank Redemption, though that’s a hard one to answer for sure. I don’t really have any favorite album’s – I’m more of a “find the song I want and get it” kind of guy.

- My favorite game would probably be Dark Reign 2, an RTS by Pandemic Studios from 2000 – it’s the game that introduced me to the concept of competitive online play. I’d played games online for years before that, sure, but never really competitively.

Make sure to check out the rest of the Independent Games Festival finalists as we head toward the March awards show.

After a bummer of a day, maybe one not quite as roller coaster-y as yesterday, let’s all shed tears of joy with some off-topic laid back conversation.

This weekend, I watched way too much Arrested Development on Hulu, a show that I’ve spent far too many hours of my life viewing again and again and again. Then I spent too much time reading the show’s Wikipedia entry, which further educated me on some of the show’s intricacies and helped me “get” more than a few jokes that initially went over my head.

Wikipedia is great for that and I often find myself dedicating a half hour or more bouncing around the site connecting random threads. I know I’m not the only one. Any time-wasting habits you’d like to share with the Kotaku Off Topic group? How about these off-topic nuggets?

• Viacom Will Take ‘Daily Show,’ ‘Colbert’ Off Hulu – A great loss for America and freedom worldwide.
• Roger Ebert’s new voice – From Oprah. Really amazing.
• HBO picks up ‘Game of Thrones’; first picture, cast list – Just one more HBO show to put on the Netflix queue.