Ever since I began playing League of Legends over a year ago, I've always been really partial to playing some of LoL's most powerful spell casters, like Annie and Morgana; there seems to be something so satisfying about exploding someone just for making one little mistake. These days, however, as I have begun making my way up the rankings to play harder opponents, sometimes I'll get into games where mistakes aren't being made, and I end up feeling like playing something a little bit more aggressive. Of course, trust Riot Games, with their incredible team of psychic developers, to drop their new champion, Urgot, right into my lap, just as I start looking for that aggressive early-game champion.

Urgot is, first and foremost, one of the strongest early game heroes I've seen in quite some time, and his ability to harass and dominate a lane, especially if he has a partner who can stun for him, is virtually unparalleled. I recall playing one game with a friend who was trying out Ryze, and it was amazing how we could, literally, force an enemy champion to return to his or her base if we managed to catch them in a snare just once. If all of this sounds great to you, and early game pressure is something you want to be one of the best at, then read on and find out if Urgot is the champion for you and your team!

Today, Riot Games' League of Legends received four nominations for the Game Developers Conference Online awards, including "Best Online Game Design," "Best Online Visual Arts," "Best New Online Game," and "Best Live Game," allowing them to compete with MMO veterans like NCsoft's Aion, Cryptic's Champions Online, Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online, and even Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

For those of you who don't know, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference where game developers from around the world gather to speak about important topics in the industry. These days, GDC has become so big that they've decided to split it up into several different conferences, each focusing on a specific industry. GDC Online, for example, will be taking place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas on October 5th to the 8th, and it will cover online games and online MMORPGs of all shapes and colors. This year, GDC Online has also decided to follow in the footsteps of its Game Developers Choice Awards (which take place in San Francisco every year) by giving out its own awards to leaders and visionaries within the industry of online games. Good luck Riot Games!

It's been about a week since Vladimir the Crimson Reaper made his debut within League of Legends (LoL), and he's already managed to impress much of the LoL community with his unique health points based play style. But is Vladimir the hero for your team? Let's find out!

To give a quick rundown on Vladimir's abilities and passives, all of Vladimir's abilities cost HP to cast, as opposed to most classes that use mana, energy or cooldowns (which means they have no real "resources" to draw from, they can simply cast their spells whenever they are up). Probably the scariest thing about Vladimir is really how much area-of-effect (AoE) damage he can deal with his combination of Tides of Blood (if maxed, this can deal some decent damage), Sanguine Pool and Hemoplague.

It was only a few weeks back that I talked about Riot Games' latest champion in League of Legends (LoL), Kog'maw, and it's clear that the team is addicted to making as much content as they possibly can. Not only did we see the advent of Xin Zhao, the speedy spear-wielding "Seneschal of Demacia" just last week, but Riot has already managed to get another champion out the door in this short time frame: Vladimir! So many champions, so little time to play them all!

But either way, the show must go on! This week in ZAM's "Buyer's Guide to League of Legends," I decided to spend some extra time checking out Xin Zhao.

League of Legends received its first major content update last week, dubbed "Season One," introducing some  long-awaited gameplay modes, new artwork, a revamped website and a new Champion. The most popular features of Season One are the new competitive gameplay modes; ranked games and "draft mode," both of which allow players to compete for prizes totaling more than $100,000 by the season's end. Players will then have the chance to qualify for the grand finals by competing in a circuit of local, online, and global events, according to developer Riot Games' official Season One announcement page.

This week ZAM interviews Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of Riot Games, to find out more about League of Legends' first major content update. In the following Q&A, we ask Merrill about the overall structure of Season One and learn about the new, competitive gameplay modes. Merrill explains the differences between "normal" and "ranked ladder" modes, and describes the fan-requested "live draft" mode in more detail. We also learn about the possible format of future seasons (will they follow the same model as Season One?) and find out what's included in the $100,000 prize package for future winners in the months to come. Read our full interview with Merrill after the jump, and check out ZAM's League of Legends portal site for more news and game information!

One other announcement that Riot Games made with the start of Season One, but is entirely deserving of its own news post, is the fact that players who rank within the top spots of the League of Legends ladder at the end of the season will also be invited to participate in the Season One finals tournament, which features a total prize purse of $100,000!

That's a whole lot of skins you could buy!

So if it just wasn't enough to be enjoying the new modes and new ranked games in League of Legends, as long as you rise in the ranks, you may also end up being able to compete for that massive tournament prize! Better get to practising!

It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Season One has landed on League of Legends fans around the world, and this thing is just chock-full of new features! First, there comes the addition of ranked games that can be played in 5v5 premade, 5v5 solo or 3v3 premade, with ladders that you can view on the League of Legends website. In addition to this, a Draft Mode has finally been added to League of Legends, alongside a brand new improved UI (with regards to responsiveness, it's also pretty good!). Finally, with Season One comes a batch of new skins (Unmasked Kayle!) and a new hero, Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Damacia. You can expect ZAM to pop up a "Buyer's Guide to Xin Zhao" as soon as possible!

Finally, Riot Games has also released an awesome looking new trailer to commemorate the launching of Season One, and they've promised players a Double IP weekend on July 21st if their video can just hit 1 million views before then (and it's certainly done so, already!). If you haven't seen the trailer, it's definitely worth checking out!

You've been asking for it, and it looks like Riot Games has been listening! That's right, Season One is finally set to begin on July 13th, 2010, and with it will come a huge plethora of updates, changes and additions that will have everyone cheering. More specifically, with the commencement of Season One comes Ranked Games, where players can queue up in 3v3 and 5v5 premade, or even solo, and they will accumulate individual rating per queue. As well, there will be a public ladder for players to be able to check out their ranked ELO ratings and how they stack up against their peers and rivals.

In addition to this, League of Legends will also be introducing the long awaited Draft Mode, where players can ban two champions per team and then pick the remainder of their team by alternating with the other team (in a 1:2:2:2:2:1 draft format). As well, draft mode will be exclusive, so make sure you have more than one hero you want to play! Finally, with Season One will also come a new and improved PVP.net interface, replete with new art, animations and graphics. I'll see you in the ranked games on July 13th!

Whenever a new champion is introduced in League of Legends, I, like most players out there with limited wallets (and limited IP), tend to wait for critical feedback before I make that commitment. Usually, I play against that champion a few times, and then I might play that champion when its time comes up on the free rotation. More often than not, however, my decision to purchase a champion really comes down to the opinions of those I play with who understand my play style, or lacking that, if I understand their play style and I can therefore see if a champion would "suit" me.

Unfortunately, for me and many of my gaming buddies, we just end up being too busy to keep our IP generation up to be able to purchase champions as they come out and, while we do make small Riot Point purchases now and then, we prefer to buy those awesome skins (Chrome Rammus) while "earning" our champions the regular way. What ends up happening is we just buy champions we think we would like, and this can translate to some frustrating games where you just don't get the synergy you wanted, or that champion just doesn't fit in that way that you need him, her or it to. So, enter ZAM.com and me, as we proudly introduce our new hero review feature for League of Legends, where I will strive to check out those new champions the moment they come out and, hopefully, I can give you just a little bit more insight to understanding if this particular champion is for you.

As a gamer whose job it is to play and (sometimes) critically analyze the games I play, one question that I've always found baffling is when peers or readers ask, "Which is better, game X or game Y?" Now, this question may sound harmless on paper, but the problem that usually arises is that most of the people who ask this question tend to assume that the answer is fairly straightforward, even if game X and game Y could be on opposite ends of the video game spectrum. Of course, video game comparisons are rarely as easy as "one has you blowing things up while the other one involves raising cuddly monsters so that you can beat on other cuddly monsters," and what invariably comes from these evaluations is that the recipient walks away with his or her vision of game defined by the comparison created.

Take, for example, League of Legends (LoL) and Heroes of Newerth (HoN), which are the two games that many players have asked me to weigh in on - as if hoping that my divine judgment can save them from spending a little bit of time and money to check out a new game (realize that nothing substitutes for personal experience). Of course, many of these comparisons have already been made, and Fony did a commendable job in checking out both of these Defense of the Ancients (DotA)-inspired games in his most recent BFF Report but, since the BFF Report can only be so long and each of these games is so deep, I've decided that, this one time, I would step in and finally compare these apples and oranges.

So which is a better game, League of Legends or Heroes of Newerth? Well, it's really more complicated than you think.