Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas can be an incredibly trying experience. The popular RTS-based versions of the genre that are League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 offer no quarter for imprecision, which has lead to an incredible-to-watch major league spectator sport, as well as a very toxic community of players. While League of Legends is a tolerable game in this regard, the perfection-demanding DOTA 2 has already been struck off my list, as I have tried time and again to enjoy but could not.

A few months ago, Ronimo games released Awesomenauts, a 2D MOBA on the PSN and XBLA that has scored considerably well with both the critics and the commoners. With their first piece of free DLC already deployed and their second on the way, this surprisingly deep party game never fails to calm me down after a loss string in the “big time” MOBA world.

Far in the future, the armies of red and blue fight each other for one omnipotent resource: Solar. These little beads of silver and gold metal power the droid armies and the starships of both sides. With the war for the resource now in a deadlock, they turn to the greatest mercenaries in the galaxy to gain the upper hand: The Awesomenauts. Known as the greatest fighters, scoundrels, and thieves in the universe, teams of three on each side are sent down to hot zones to secure the Solar-mining drill core and to destroy the opposing force.

While it would be easy for a team of three to infiltrate the enemy’s base, both armies deploy choke point turrets to prevent aggression and use their droid army to assault the enemy’s base. As an Awesomenaut of such elite caliber, your job is to assist the droid army in taking down the turrets and the enemy drill core as well as killing any opposing mercenaries you meet. In order to grow powerful in a game, much like in any other MOBA, you must collect Solar which can be dropped by slain bots, mercenaries, neutral monsters, or collected off the ground. While there is a leveling aspect to the game, there is no “traditional” benefit to it aside from telling the enemy players how much Solar you have collected, as each level equals 100 units.

Gnaw, the newest awesomenaut, excels at damage over time attacks, turrets from the corpses of your enemies, and being exceedingly rude at the dinner table.

The Awesomenauts are all unique characters that carry a certain mix of roles and each have their own way of dispensing the pain on the battlefield. Froggy G, for example, uses his hydromantic break dancing to become the slipperiest foe on the board, stunning enemies with his Hydro Dash and free styling into a frenzied hurricane, while Clunk throws his weight around as a tanky fighter that can suck the life out of enemies with a large set of hydraulic chompers and self destruct in an area around him to deal immense damage to himself and enemies. There is a certain difficulty to some of the later heroes as they tend to veer away from the normal damage dealing routine, like Coco who uses her ball lightning to harass and push enemy opponents around the fighting area and her spark trail to damage and slow enemy pursuers, or Voltar who is more of a healer than a fighter, but has a severely potent attack skill if you allow him to build it up as he generates his money through healing allies. Unlike other popular MOBA games, Awesomenauts does not have an out-of-game currency, but it does have an experience gauge that will allow you to unlock characters, upgrades, and even different stages at certain levels, and has an optional prestige system that will show off how much time has been spent during games.