Arcade Magic
For those in the know, Magic the Gathering has been one of the forerunners in the Collectible Card Game genre for years. Fans of the game and the genre will be pleased to see that it has been released on Xbox Arcade, allowing them to play without spending a fortune building a deck of cards. For the rest of the planet this game will be very much a love/hate product with little room in between.
The plot behind Magic is relatively simple. You play a Planeswalker, a wizard with the ability to summon various spells and call upon the protection of a number of monsters. Your number one aim in life is to wander about finding other Planeswalkers and using said armaments to kill them off.
As a Planeswalker you adhere to a colour or colours and this relates to where you draw the energies for your spells. Your chosen colour also tells a lot about your character and your playing style. The colours from which you base your strategies are blue, green, black, white and red. Each of these relates to a different class of magic. For instance black magic is based around death and decay and its spells and monsters adhere to this in that they are skeletons, zombies etc. Transversely, blue magic relates to the sea, sky and the mind. This gives its user command over air elementals, mermaids and various tricky abilities to force opponents to forget spells and counter incoming castings.
It is what it is, a card game on a virtual table.
This all sounds rather long winded but your choice of colour as a player will shape the way you tackle the game. The basic aim of Magic is to reduce your opponents life to zero by attacking him with the spells under your control. You also need to consider that you will need to build a strong enough defence,(in the form of monsters,) to stop him hitting you. The strategy element comes in being able to balance what your are attacking and defending with so you don’t leave yourself open to being killed by your opponent. You also have to be aware that you can’t just cast anything. Spells cost, and this cost is paid in Mana which comes in the form of lands. If you don’t have enough of this you will really struggle to do much of anything.
The game is very easy to learn and a basic tutorial is supplied. Those people who have never played a game like this before shouldn’t be put off by its complex seeming nature, they have been catered for. Equally, the tutorial isn’t too invasive and can be switched off so the old hands can just get straight to playing.
I have found that a lot of Xbox Arcade titles are either very good online and dire during offline play, (if there is any at all,) or quite good in single player but that hardly anyone plays online. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Magic is equally good in both. To do well online you really have to master offline play.
By completing the game in single player with the different decks you are given you unlock more cards to use online. Expansions are also being released adding new decks so the game doesn’t get stale. Online play is really addictive because even though your deck won’t alter (unless you change it as a whole for another), you will never play the same game twice. The community is also generally very friendly so newbies shouldn’t be scared to jump right in. The problem that players new to the genre will find is that a veteran knows the strategies and the rules much better and will have a distinct advantage.
One of the biggest cons is that you can’t break down the given decks and build your own. This stops a player building the ultimate “kill everything” deck, but also takes away a certain amount of freedom of choice from the game. This is going to be more frustrating for people who know the CCG genre than those just playing for fun but it is still there.
The other big problem with the game is that you will often find yourself picking up a hand full of Mana cards, or spell cards and no Mana at all. In a deck of seventy something cards the chances of this would be very slim. You do have a redraw option at the cost of a card from your hand but if the same happens again you will find it very difficult to play effectively.
Graphics and sound don’t really factor with this game. The music is nice but pretty generic and the graphics are basic, (apart from the card images which are true to their real versions and very well done.)This is a title that focuses purely on game play, it is what it is, a card game on a virtual table. People looking for more might want to leave this one alone.
Lastly they still haven’t worked out all of the bugs. These aren’t massively noticeable but every now and again you’ll be mid game and one of your cards won’t work. If you are on your way to winning this can be really frustrating.
All in all this is a solid title. If you have a spare 800 Xbox points and like the card and strategy genres you should definitely give it a go. If you are a gamer wanting something more action packed you will probably be wasting your time with this download.
The Bad: Difficult for those new to the CCG Genre.; Limited deck building options.; Still contains some bugs.
Silver Y Award