Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds
by Atari
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Category: Video Games
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Product Summary
Brand: AtariFormat: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2004-12-14
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Atari
Accessories:
Video Game Reviews of Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds
Customer Review: It couldn't have been made simpler...
Summary: 1 Stars
...and I mean that in the worst way. I'm a fan of Magic the Gathering, so when I saw a new PC title with its name, I grabbed it instantly. I quickly realized why the description for this game is so vague, and the reason is two-fold.
First is that you shouldn't even call this game Magic the Gathering: Battleground, but "Magical Battles on the Ground" because so little of the card game exists in this PC title. There is no land, you just collect mana over time, about equal to your opponent. There are no attack phases, your creatures just slowly, automatically do their damage. There aren't any turns or phases whatsoever. You don't even collect cards, or at least not what I'd call cards, you just unlock different spells, which you cast not by drawing a card, but simply by choosing to by hitting the proper hot-key, once you get enough mana. But if it simply didn't follow the original game, Battlegrounds could still be a good game.
That's where Atari frankly missed the mark, making the second reason for vague product descriptions. There is no story, nor any useful tips for strategy, in what few cracks in the gameplay you could fit it. The learning curve rises not by improving the CPU's intelligence, or by increasing the complexity of gameplay, but only by giving the opponent better spells than you, consistently. As I may have mentioned, when you acquire a new spell or creature, you can load that into your "deck", which I would much rather call a hot-key set, because that's all it is. You get a short list of spells you can assign to hot-keys which you can cast repeatedly, granted you have sufficient mana, which you get by moving your character on your side of the field, picking up power-ups, which seems a little pointless since there are no obstacles, or anything else that has to do with your position, so they could just automatically give them to you, or insert something more interesting like a micro-game to grant said mana.
The animation isn't so hot, there isn't much variety of spells, and I don't think you can even make multi-color decks. I usually do a pretty good job of finding something positive to say, but for this game, I can't. I wouldn't recommend this game even if the price tag plummeted. But if you must pinch your pennies, or have a fetish for cheap games, I would recommend buying one of a slew of fantastic games on Amazon for under 15 bucks.
Description of Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds
Enter an epic battleground - an arena from the mythical world of Magic: The Gathering ? Battlegrounds, where one-on-one fighting requires a menacing combination of strength and sorcery. Summon barbaric creatures. Hurl lightning-fast spells. Scorch the landscape with a blistering flurry of combat.Action Games
Computer and Video Games
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