Magic: Steam review (Demo version)

I'm running Windows XP SP3 and playing Steam's Demo version of Magic:Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 on an Athlon 2600+ w/ 2GB of RAM and a 512MB AGP (*Edit* not PCI as first thought) GeForce 6200, and it runs like a 15 y/old dog with Hip Dysplasia.

Seriously???

It's MAGIC:THE GATHERING!!! It's a CARD GAME for Pete's sake!!! Even Wizard101 runs better than Steam's Magic:TG. If my experience is anything to go by, don't bother trying to play it on anything more than a few years old.

The game itself looks good. The layout of the playing field is well designed and everything fits on the one screen without it getting cluttered. The cards are colorful and look just like Magic cards, with the exception that they're on your monitor and not in your hand. Then again this IS the computer version so I can't really fault it for that. The UI is very user friendly and I thought it rather intuitive, and I liked being able to mouse-over cards and use the scroll wheel to zoom in, which is how you activate your cards' abilities.

Except...one of my creatures had an ability that if I Tapped it and one Plains Card I was supposed to be able to Tap an opponent's card. Despite having a Plains Card untapped I was not able to access this ability. I wanted to Tap my opponent's sole Untapped Creature so he couldn't defend but the game pushed me straight from the Play a Land phase into the Attack Phase. Attacking with that card (a 1/1) was certain death as the Computer opponent had a 4/5 Defender. Instead I was forced to wait, then Block him (& die, but not lose Health) instead of being able to Tap his Attacker first. I still won that particular match but it was literally a "sudden death" game where I won with just 1 HP left.

That leads me into something I really didn't like: the Tutorial.

I played the Tutorial just to get an idea of how the UI worked (although as I said it was fairly intuitive), and I did not like how the Tutorial frequently forced me to Attack immediately after drawing a Card from my Deck. Before I even played a Land card the Tutorial insisted I Attack.

Now in my books the correct order of play is Untap any Tapped Cards, Draw a Card, play a Land (if you have one), summon creatures/cast spells/play Equipment, etc., THEN Attack. And I find that a very logical order in which to do things.

Why? You might have a creature with Haste, which does not suffer from Summoning Sickness. If you Attack prior to Summoning your Creatures then this particular Creature cannot make use of its Haste ability, and as the only time Haste comes into play is the Turn in which a Creature is summoned it seems extremely stupid to summon it AFTER Attacking.

No! You can't play a Land right now. OR Summon that creature. Why Not? Because I told you to Attack! Stop clicking that damn Land card!

So -1 points for poor AI/programming.

How many points is that? -1? Huh. That can't be right, because aside from the stupid lessons taught to you in the Tutorial, Steam's Magic:TG actually seems like a decent game, or it would be if I was playing it on a machine which could run it smoothly. That's probably my biggest complaint. It's a card game, and yet it seems to require a reasonably new machine in order to run smoothly.

The Full Version of the game on Steam costs $10. Would I pay that for it? I don't know. Probably not. That $10 would buy me 3 Boosters of real Magic cards, and I'd buy them before buying the Steam version of the game. I only downloaded the Demo version to see what it was like. Would I pay $5 for the full version? Yeah, I probably would, but only after buying a $500 PC that will actually run it :D

*EDIT*
I installed the Demo on my other PC, which is now the wife's PC. It's a dual core Athlon 4200+ and like my archaic PC it's also running Windows XP SP3 with 2GB of RAM, but unlike the older box it's equipped with a GeForce 8800GT. On this rig the Magic:Plainswalkers Demo runs as smooth as silk.

I need a new PC.

285 Magic TCG cards for $20? SOLD!

A few weeks ago my son and I were in Target with the wife, so while she wandered off to do her thing we stopped by our favorite section (or maybe it's the second favorite, after the video games) of Target, being the Trading Card aisle.

We saw the 2012 Magic: TCG Fat Pack, which comes with two deck boxes, 80 Land cards, and nine 15-card boosters, being 215 cards total for $40! That's a lot of cards for $40 (at $3-$4 each the nine boosters alone are almost worth that) and I was seriously contemplating getting it. Then we saw the 2011 Deck Builder's Tool Kit.

It didn't have any deck boxes (meh), but it did have 100 land cards, another 125 random Spell cards, and four 15-card boosters, for a total of 285 cards. Woah! Even MORE cards! But unlike the Fat Pack it did not have a price sticker.

"It's got to be at least $40," I said to my son, "maybe even $50. Let's see how much it is."

So we picked it up and walked further into the store until we found a price scanner, and when it rang up at $20 we could not believe our eyes. It has a third more cards than the 2012 Fat Pack, but for half the price. Crazy! So of course we bought it. (Yes, it's the 2011 series. So what?)

We didn't get any OMG! Awesome! Foil cards from the Booster packs, but using the strategy recommended by the booklet (and some of our other spare cards) we did throw together five 60-card decks, being 24 Land cards plus 36 Spells, Creatures, etc. to go with them.

And then we Dueled.

I went with a poison-filled Black/Red Deck, while my son chose a Blue/Green Deck with several Elementals and Wyrms. The Wyrms are High cost Creatures but they're hard hitting game changers and when they get into play an unopposed Wyrm can kill you in two-to-three Turns.

So far we've played 7 games with these two Decks and he has been kicking my arse, and when I say he's been kicking my arse I really mean it. Out of those 7 games I've won just 2, and one of those was really just due to the luck of the draw (as in bad luck on his part) where he had a bunch of Green Spells/Creatures in his hand and nothing but Blue Lands. So he couldn't summon much of anything, and whatever he did summon I quickly shut down. I finished that particular game completely unscathed, still at full health.

In the other game I won it seemed like everything finally came together for me. I got the right cards out at the right time, I was able to weaken his stronger Cards, and I didn't steamroll him like he's been doing to me, but it was still a decisive win.

I also thought I might have him in the most recent game we played as I'd used a spell to Destroy his 4/4 Creature (the strongest he had on the table, at the time) and after a pitched battle we had one Creature each in play and mine was the stronger. Yay!

Then he summoned a Wyrm.

On his next Turn he cast Sleep and Tapped my solitary Creature so I couldn't Block even if I wanted to, and on his final Turn used an Instant to return it to my hand. I have to give him credit where it's due, he does know how to use his cards effectively and strategically.

I still think I need to tweak my deck a little though, so I can be more competitive against him. You could say we've Dueled two times, playing four games the first time, and three the second, and I won just 1 game in each of those two sessions.

My Deck's strength appears to be my Black Cards which can Poison (-1/-1, or worse) and debilitate his Creatures, even his 7/7 Wyrms. When it works, it works well. The problem is I don't seem able to get my cards into play fast enough, and when I do I'm overwhelmed.

Could it be a "Rock beats Scissors beats Paper" kind of thing? That my Black/Red Deck is just not strong against his Green/Blue Deck. Does that exist in Magic TCG? I assume it does, else everyone would just try to have THE Uber Pwng Deck that nothing can beat.

I don't have powerful Creatures like his Wyrms, which usually require 6-7 Lands to Summon. Most of my Creatures require 3-4 Lands and some need just 2, or even just 1.

It's not that I don't have Lands in play because we both have the recommended 24 Lands in our Decks.

Actually, maybe I don't have enough Lands.

With a majority of low cost Creatures in my deck maybe I should increase my Land count to 30 cards, with the strategy being to be able to play one Land every Turn (and never stop playing them), meaning after the first, uneventful 5-to-6 Turns have passed I'll be able to Summon more than just one Creature per Turn. That's assuming I have Creatures in my Hand and it's not filled with Lands. That's definitely something to think about.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to crush the boy. He's only 11 and he has a lot of fun playing Magic with his old man. Likewise I'm enjoying the time we spend together, too. (Who knows how long that will last?) It's not even that I mind losing to him; one of my favorite time wasters on my phone is Solitaire, so I can accept losing game after game after game. I don't mind losing to him, but I'd at least like to go down fighting.