Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds

"This game is pretty bad."

I was looking for a good game to play at Blockbuster the other day. I saw Magic The Gathering: Battlegrounds for $5.00 on a used game shelf and I decided I would at least see how it was since it was so cheap.

There's no story to this game. There are only two things that you do in this game. You battle people with mosters based on the card game and you collect spells baed on the card game. I don't know why, but they decided not to put a story into this game.
Story 0/10

The graphics get a better score than the story. The graphics are pretty good, and there's some good attention to details. These are the kind of graphics you would expect to find in a Star Wars game, just with a little more detail. Still, good graphics doesn't mean the game is great.
Graphics 8/10

The sound is OK too. The spells sound pretty nice and you'll get some pretty good sounds out of the creatures.. The sounds aren't are great as a lot of other games, but I would have to say they're better than some of the games I have played.
Sound 7/10

The gameplay is pretty bad. Most of the game is opening menus and summoning creatures. Also, it's bad enough that the entire game takes place in the same type of field the whole time (just with different decoration), but you can't even go on your enemy's side of the field or you find yourself losing health quickly. The battles also run just a little bit too fast, so you have barely any time to summon shields or creatures before you die.
Gameplay 5/10

The controls aren't good either. There are a lot of button combos to remember. This means that for a good percentage of the time you're playing, you're looking at the controls in the instruction book. This is a bad thing because I didn't get an instruction manual with my game and so I had to remember all the controls in my head. That can be a huge problem because you try to do that and when you're trying to summon a creature you accidentally press one wrong button and waste all of your mana on a spell that does you no good. Either this game should be for the computer instead of the Xbox, or you should be an octopus.
Controls 4/10

Once I beat this game I never played it again. I barely wanted to finish it the first time. There's no real point to buying a game you can't replay because then you wasted a bunch of money on a few hours of fun, or in this case torture. The only thing that makes this game desired to replay is that it's difficult in the later stages and you get a slight challenge.
Replay Value 2/10

Overall this game is pretty bad. Playing this game was such a bad experience that once I beat it I microwaved it, played Frisbee with it, then used it for a shiny piece of firewood. If you buy this game looking for a good time, you're out of luck. If you see this game anywhere don't even bother picking it up. Just walk right past it.
Overall 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/07