The best things in life are free, love, friendship, the merchandise in an overturned truck on a highway. And recently promotions to build word of mouth interest for games. Heroes of Newerth is just such a game with just such a promotion. From now on until August 9 you can enjoy the hell out of every element of this tower defence strategy game, all 65 characters, maps, stat tracking and a VOIP service for the low, low price of zero dollars (plus zero GST).

If, come the day after August 9, you find that Heroes of Newerth and its addictive Defence of the Ancients style gameplay rings your bell, then you can plonk down a mere $30 US for the full game. That's ass cheap for a pretty terrific game. I dabbled with it during the beta and enjoyed it quite a lot and i encourage you if you're slightly curious about it to check it out.

You may be familiar with Warcraft III, the seminal and still popular RTS game. One of Warcraft III's most amazing features was a deep and complex level builder, basically the complete software package the Blizzard peep's used to make levels in the game. Born from this simple (mind you I could never work out how to use it) tool were dozens of amazing custom maps and scenarios. Including more than a view innovative game types that became fast favourites with both the modding community and online RTS players in general. By far the grand daddy of these was Defence of the Ancients.

Basically it's an RTS game with two teams of one or more players who each choose a hero character with individual stats and abilities. The goal is to reach the other side of the map and destroy the other teams Ancient, a fortified building or structure while protecting your own. AI controlled characters, generally called 'creeps', spawn periodically and move directly to the enemy ancient, offering opportunities for player controlled hero characters to gain experience and level up by killing enemy creeps. In games greater than 1v1 it's almost impossible for a single hero to carry the game and the games over reliance on team work has been one of its most popular features. Defence of the Ancients has spawned it's own genre of games including League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and the upcoming Xbox Live shooter Monday Night Combat.

Give Heroes of Newerth a bash and see what you think. What have you got to lose? It's bloody free people until 9th August!

Go straight here to sign up.