For those of you unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering, the game has long been associated with all things "geek." Imagine, if you will, a cadre of slightly overweight, white males with greasy hair, all stooped over decks of brightly colored cards, moving with lightning speed as they draw cards, turn them sideways, and argue over whether or not moves are illegal under current rules that they've seemed to memorize to the letter. For two years during my high school career, I was a part of this crowd. Though I was never terribly good at playing the game, I enjoyed the thrill of play, even if I was sure to lose against far better players.
The card game, itself, focuses on five basic colors - Red, White, Black, Blue, and Green. Each color has its strengths and weaknesses, but players can easily create and adapt their decks to suit their style of play, and customize it endlessly to meet their needs. When I played the game, I focused on making esoteric decks that were never really effective, and frankly were so far out there that no one against whom I played had any respect for my "creativity," and easily beat the crap out of me when we played.
The video game version, however, does not allow for such creativity (at least not to my knowledge). Duels of the Planeswalkers provides players with pre-built decks to use in their campaigns, and with each successive battle fought, a new (and generally more powerful) card is unlocked and added to your deck. As you continue to battle, new decks are unlocked for you, but your options for customization are limited.
While this game provides me with loads of time killing strategy and fun, there are a few qualms I have with the game:
1.) The issue of deck customization is something of a sticking point for me. While I understand that it's difficult to program a game to allow for the literally millions of different combinations of cards you can choose, I feel very backed into a corner because I am unable to play to my strengths and weaknesses. This is a double-edged sword, though, as these decks are pre-built with the idea of effectiveness in mind - a feat that I was never quite able to manage. In some ways, the lack of customization is probably saving me from experiencing humiliating losses at the hands of the computer.
2.) The background music is honestly terrible. It's this mix between dramatic guitar rock and suspenseful and slow riffs that are really only tolerable, at best. It's a throwback to crappy game music from the mid-90s, and frankly, the best part about the settings is that it allows you to turn off the music, altogether.
3.) The ability to connect with others and play against the seems, at first, to be cool. In my case, it allowed me to reconnect with a friend of mine from thirteen years ago who then proceeded to completely annihilate me in less than ten minutes. It was fun, for the first few minutes, but frankly, unless you enjoy the prospect of wearing a headset to chat with someone while you play cards with them, it's not very much worth the effort or the glitches it will cause on your PS3.
Overall, Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers is definitely worth the $9.99 investment, and the $4.99 for three expansion packs are worth it, after you've exhausted all the regular play hours. As for paying $0.99 to unlock individual cards, I find them to be almost entirely worthless. You can unlock them through gameplay, anyway, so why pay extra for the early advantage?
GAMES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
No comments:
Post a Comment