While I've never been into Magic the Gathering, I have been aware of it for more than a decade now. I've known people that have decks, I've seen people play it at down at the Seattle Wizards of the Coast store in the U-District, and I even played a game of it myself once. This girl I knew was a big fan of it, and she tried to teach me to play on her living room floor. I didn't really understand why it was fun, but I understood the basic concept of the game...and I was able to figure it out.
The same can not be said for the video game version.
I played through the tutorial of this, and received what I thought was enough education to begin a game against a computer opponent. Unfortunately, I was unable to figure out how to play my cards (there is some very basic element of the controls I have trouble with...and I couldn't do anything). The computer was able to play offense and defense cards, and for some reason...I couldn't figure out how to use mine. I know I was doing something wrong, so I took the tutorial again.
That's the first time I've ever had to take a tutorial twice, and when I was done, I still hadn't figured out what I was missing. Luckily for me, the game offers a "mentor" option in the online mode, where you can ask someone for help. I tried to join some of the mentor games, but no one wanted to play them...so I started a one on one, and thought I'd ask my opponent for tips.
I'm not sure if my opponent spoke english or not (they had a mic, and thanked me for the game afterwards)...but they soundly beat me and I don't think I ever got a hit in. Again, there's something major I'm missing about this one.
Overall Score? Right now...it's a 0/10. I literally can not figure out how to play this in even the most basic way. I'm going to try and ask a few friends who play this one regularly to help me out...and I'll come back to it after they have.
Achievements? I haven't been able to earn even the most basic ones yet...but I'll update when I do.
Updated 1-13-2011
I'm putting together the massive amounts of review data from this project to make some nice charts, and when re-reading this review, I realized I'd never come back to update it. I actually did manage to get an achievement, about ten days after I originally posted this review. I remember exactly how I did it too....I had a co-worker who was really familiar with the game come watch me play a round, and guide me through the right cards to pick and play at every turn. I won my first match (against what he said was a really easy computer opponent). I still didn't understand what the hell was going on, but I finally got my stupid achievement, and I never played this awful game again.
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