Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds

"A travesty of the amazing card game."

Lest's get straight into it. When you first turn it on it's quite impressive graphically which is good as it turns out to be its only real redeeming feature, more on that later. Now if you were hoping for a nice little RPG type thing like Pokemon Trading Card Game for GBC (albeit more serious) you're going to be disappointed. You simply click on the scenario name and off you go to do that level, a simple one-on-one fight with a rival wiza- err, duelist. Considering that this isn't a game using Magic *cards* I find changing the name from wizard to duelist a little strange, but nevermind.

Now, the lack of an RPG overworld would be fine with me if the actual battles were good, but sadly they fall flat on their face, especially on PC. First thing you see on a battle are the graphics, though, and there's no problems there. In fact, they're quite lovely. Its quite a pretty game, which makes the inner ugliness all the more disappointing. Its terrible to play on PC, as there are about 3000 bloody buttons to remember. There's only 10 spells you can play at once (er, 60-card deck? Anyone?) and you might as well have hotkeys for them. It would be better than the teeth-grinding menu system that demands you flip through pages of the menu while hundreds of ravenous beasts lunge at you, and you picking the wrong spell and being torn apart.

However, you can eventually wrap your exhausted brain around the controls (if only by remembering which button combo does what) and the game starts to get a little better. For a while. Because the single-player soon bores as its all the same thing. The real card game offers a different game every time, even if you used the same opponent and you both used the same deck, because obviously the cards will come out differently after shuffling. In the single player, the enemy can start with 3 creatures out while you have none, and you get pasted repeatedly until you work out how to beat your opponent. As they use the same cards. Every. Time. Simon uses Llanowar Elf, you use engulfing flame. After three of these he uses a different spell which got you last time so you counter it. To deal with the unfair odds given you at the start of a match and progress to win, you must memorise what your enemy does. Because rather than your opponent having a cunning deck strategy, its usually him having three creatures at the start of the match to raise the difficulty bar. It's cheap, it's boring, it's no fun.

Multiplayer is decent in that your opponent has just as much trouble fiddling through the menu as you and so it makes for a more balanced match, and he might actually play some different cards for a change. However, this means you use all your initial cards and soon it'll get stale as your opponent (and you) have to use the same combos as you can't be arsed to remember all the button combos.

The very fact the manual has 23 points showing how different this game is from the cards shows that having MTG in the title is a brand rather than a concept. It removes the fun and diversity from Magic, and injects repetition and boredom. If you play Magic, use the money for this game to buy that rare card you need or a new deck. If this is the first time you have come into contact with Magic, buy a Core Set deck with your cash. You may want to rent this game for curiosity or because you really love it, but I can't recommend buying it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/04/04