A newcomer's take on MOBA, starring Infinite Crisis

Not through active dislike, but disinterest or other reasons. You'll rarely, if ever, find me playing sports titles (not a sports fan), MMOs (haven't the time). Then there's those things you grow a general mystified acceptance of, things that have become a norm of everyday living, and a rhetorical query as to the when and how you missed out on knowing about these things in the first place.

For me, one of those is the MOBA scene. It's part of my job to know about it, but I don't know it. It's a genre that's passed me by. However, I am a huge comic book fan, making me exactly the sort of crowd that Turbine are trying to entice in with their partnerships with DC, opening up the comic book giant's entire multiverse worth of characters to play as in-game.

If you're like me, then read on. For those aficionados of the genre, I know you'll be scouring the text for actual information and not poorly-informed impressions. So here's the liner notes in one paragraph so you can absorb and go about your day:

Team-based power struggle over lanes tailored towards aggression with DC characters filling different class roles. Open beta goes live March 14th with three maps and 27 champions, based on multiverse versions of comic book heroes and villains, on offer. One new Champion will be introduced every three weeks henceforth, and new costumes added every week. The three maps will be Gotham Heights, Coast City, and the tri-lane map Gotham Divided.

Got all that? Cool. Now, back to getting my ass handed to me.

I'm sat down in a row with five other fellows, all of whom have been honest in hand lifting when asked who'd not had any experience in the genre. There's an odd twisting of the stomach when these rarities happen at preview events: a not uncommon discomfort of being the odd one out. One expectation of the scene is that it's not particularly friendly to our type of player. Turbine representatives try their best to ease us in.

While other members talk deep strategy with our experienced counterparts sitting opposite, our guys lean in and point out the basics. Mouse click for movement, attacks and abilities mapped to the keyboard, gradually unlocked and upgraded as we gain XP, cooldown and recharges measured in the seconds. Rechargeable health when back at base (and a long-charge teleport move to get back there from anywhere on the map). Three lanes to work across, enemy towers to disengage, NPC minions to war with or ignore. The need to work in pairs, groups. The need to avoid the same in enemy encounters if you're caught soloing. That it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm pointed to the brawlers - Doomsday in particular - as the best choice for a starter character. Melee attacks are easy to direct, his abilities tailored to increase strength, defence. Easily understood visual language for someone raised on action adventures. And with that, I'm off.

The DC connection builds rivalries that mightn't otherwise be there in character you've no history with. Turbine talk post-match how they're hinging their MOBA take on aggression, making sure players duke it out sooner rather than later, that the minions - usually the frontline in clashing sides - become a subset of the overall battle rather than a dominating one.

Soon enough I'm brought down by Green Lantern, and for the next thirty or so minutes - which whizz by - I look out for the emerald warrior on the mini-map to try and even the score. But I quickly learn I need to time my strike, as there's a need for retreat - not a move Doomsday's known for - when facing more than one attacker at a time.

The game circles around feints, quick pushes forward and back. The map's divided evenly in half to begin, with each side getting equal amount of defensive towers. Cracks in the ground indicate the range of the towers' blasts. Clashing, then pulling back to your nearest tower, and out of the way of the ranged attacks, becomes the default strategy. In combat you know within a second or two whether you can press the advantage - and how much risk there is in chasing a Champion before they get back under the safety of their own tower.

The idea is to capitalise on attacking a tower with few minions and even fewer Champions defending it. Tower blasts can still chew your health down to zero easily, so you need your own minions to soak up the hits, and at least one other Champion by your side to split the health deductions. Down the tower, and you move to the next. The idea is to clear a path to the enemy base, and a concerted effort by your team to destroy it, and ultimately win the match.

I found myself overwhelmed at points, in the same way I've been in heated PvP MMO matches, as players clash and the screen erupts in a cascade of multi-coloured numbers, special attacks and milling characters. Trying to work out where I was and whether I was actually successful in my hits became a separate learning curve in its own right; only by on-site commentators bellowing out encouragement or dismissals did I know how I was doing. I was still decoding what I was watching come the match's end.

But there were instances, short and small that they were, when simple strategy and brute force paid off. Circling round behind while Champions duelled to smash the enemy with a rear attack. Doomsday's basic ability is a three-strike ground smash the strength of which can be increased by an ability buff. Its range is decent enough you can catch even a retreating player, as I did taking down Green Lantern mere feet from the safety of his comrades. I may have been massacred immediately afterwards, but the revenge made it worth it.

Better is his charge move. Clicking on one Champion and executing will see Doomsday run forward, sweeping up the Champion in his arms and slamming them into a nearby wall. Not only is it a great distraction move, but it can pull a Champion away from their comrades and leave them open for a pummelling. Such as when I caught Superman out as he and his cohorts raced back to a nearby tower.

The match ended, predictably enough, with us losing. But it didn't feel like a defeat. With six Champions downed, I felt some smidgen of success coming out. And a surprising amount of enjoyment from the experience. Talking to an old colleague who's now attached to the Turbine crew, he explained how the MOBA scene had come to dominate his life, playing it both during work and in the evenings. Partly because of the enjoyment, partly to keep up his skills up to scratch.

That's a sizeable investment. One that I'm not wholly convinced I have the time to make. I felt like I'd hardly scratched the surface of the game in this one, debut session. I hadn't questioned how the studio are looking to temper the abrasiveness against newcomers that Infinite Crisis will surely bring to the fold.

But I'm now no longer looking at the scene as some terrifying mystery that's too immense to even begin to unravel. And maybe, yes, maybe, I'll start streaming some Twitch sessions when things go live in a few weeks. Because in all the times I lay dead on the battlefield, watching my comrades continue to duke it out became engrossing viewing - now I knew what the hell I was watching.