Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds

"It could have been so good..."

Intro

I have been a Magic:the Gathering player for about 6 and a half years now, so when I heard that there was a new game coming up, I started calling my friend about it. We both started playing it together and we had awaited a new Magic-game for quite some time. For those of you not familiar with the game, I will explain the basics.

Magic:the Gathering is a TCG (Trading Card Game) with much depth and strategy. You, as a player, are a wizard with a wide variety of spells, which you can cast by using mana (yeah I know that’s not much of surprise, but hey..). This mana you gather by playing land cards (you can only play one per turn). These land cards can be used to gather mana to cast loads of different creatures or cast all kinds of spells to pulverize your opponent.

Due to the wide variety of different cards you are able to build a strategy of your own. The choice of cards in this game is HUGE so the chance of running into the same deck is almost impossible. This is also our appeal to the game. We where really happy about this game until we played it.

Graphics

The game looks very pretty indeed. It uses the Unreal-engine and was adapted very nicely for this game. The models of the wizards and creatures are amazing. When creatures attack each other and start bashing the crap out of each other you look in amazement. Never in the world of magic was there so much liveliness.

The spells also look beautiful. Fire blazing creatures to a crisp and smoldering lava sizzles the poor beings out of this cruel world. You can see that they put in very much work to get everything out of the engine. The arenas also look great and make the graphics look complete.

Graphics: 8/10

Sound

Well, the sound is quite good. Fire sounds like its burning and fighting creatures sound like fighting creatures. All good in my book. Although the sound isn’t amazing, it does the job nicely and I have no problems with it.

Sound: 7/10

Gameplay

But here is where the train of heavenly goodness stops. Better yet, the train leaps of the rails, hurls down a cliff and finally crashes in the depths of the Earth. This is because, it does not play like a Magic game AT ALL!

The game is not turn-based, it even a high-speed game, which Magic-players aren’t exactly used to in Magic games. It based VERY loosely on the rules. One does not gain mana, one regenerates it this can be done by bashing the A button or gathering manacrystals. Let me just tell you that, when me and my friend noticed this we started screaming obscene things like: What the !$&* where those !@#$%)}&*$%# thinking when the made this $*&!@$# crap.

Seriously, the only thing this has to do with magic is that the creatures and spells are ripped of the game so it doesn’t look like a total licence-rape. In the TCG, your cards (spells) are random, in this game you can pick them your self. Throw all strategy out of the window and start training your thumb because this is a buttonbashfest.

Gameplay 3/10

Replayabilaty

When I first played this I had the urge to throw it out of the window. Thank god I didn’t, so my friend could get a refund on this trash. I could not think of anybody who could keep this up for longer than 10 minutes (we played it for about a hour to see if it god any better in time, IT DIDN’T)

I can’t think of any reason to pick it back up again than to look at the pretty graphics. The gameplay is so bad that i can’t bare to play it again, it might even lead to RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) from all the bashing on the A button. So don’t even try.

Replayabilty 2/10

Conclusion

It could have been so good, because Magic is a really good card game, which gets you hooked for loads of time. And I must admit that they did a great job on the graphics and the sound. But since when does a game stop there?

If you want something like Magic and you want good graphics to go with it, than buy Etherlords II, which is a good game that players a lot like Magic and is worth every penny. As for Atari, the next time you guys think, let’s cash in on some subculture, don’t chose mine!

Overall 4 (it get’s one minus point for cheap cashing in)

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/04