Stepping into my hands-on with Riot Games' League of Legends, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I hadn't really heard much about it other than that it was an RTS/RPG game that started out as the popular Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients. When I sat down and actually played with the game for a while, I quickly realized that this was one of the coolest games on display at this year's Game Developers Conference.

The basic premise of the game is that players play the role of a summoner who enters into battles with other summoners: each summoner chooses a champion to fight on his behalf, and then players control the avatars in battle. Each avatar possesses totally different abilities and combat styles: Nuna the Yeti-Rider is effectively a tank unit, Master Yi is a sneaky swordsman, and Alistar the Minotaur is a brawler. The match I participated in had me playing as a healer/priest, but I learned that it was possible to use my champion as both a support and attack class once I learned her strengths and limitations. Learning to control—and eventually mastering—any of these characters will take some time to learn, but once you've got the basics down, they're a ton of fun to play.

The game is built on the idea of creating an RPG/RTS title that utilizes the same concept of multiplayer matches in the way that games like Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2 do. Players will choose their avatars and level them up during matches as they gain experience. However, the avatars' abilities will reset at the beginning of each match. Meanwhile, as summoners earn experience points, they will earn new abilities and spells that won't reset at the end of a match.

When I first saw League of Legends, I was convinced that the developer had actually managed to adapt the World of Warcraft graphics engine to work with RTS gameplay. The graphics feature the same cartoony style that dominates Blizzard's games, but closer inspection revealed that the game featured differences in environment and character models. I was informed that Riot had developed their own internal graphics engine and Hokyo Lim (the man behind the graphics of the Sly Cooper games) was League of Legends' art director. The game really looks great, featuring dynamic colors and an animation-like style.

Overall, I found League of Legends to be fast, fun, and stylish; aspects that are lacking in many of the games that I've seen on display during the week so far. The game is tentatively scheduled for a release later on this year, and since it will provide fast-paced RTS/RPG action online (sadly, no single-player campaign is scheduled) with no subscription costs, it seems safe to say that anyone interested in games like Warcraft or Starcraft should definitely keep their eyes on this title.