Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds
Developer: Secret Level
Publisher: Atari
MTG:TG can be a real finger-fest. It takes awhile to get used to the key combinations. The left hand is standard W-A-S-D movement keys, which most people are used to. Your right hand needs to efficiently cycle through the J-K-L (sorcery, creature, enchantment) keys, as well as the I (increase mana by a tiny sliver or return to a neutral casting position) and O (cycle through spellbook pages) keys. Again, practice, practice, practice. You can also put your most common spells in the easiest to activate slots. For instance, if you assign your faithful Elvish Warrior to the middle (#2) slot, you can summon it with a quick K-K keypress. Fighting an opponent that uses enchantments? Put 'Tranquility' (destroys all enchantments) in the third slot and cast the spell with a quick L-L keypress. You get the idea.Graphics are good, but not spectacular. Framerates will drop down significantly if there's a lot going on in the arena, so stay sharp, as it does affect gameplay. There are some superb spell and death animations mixed in with the simpler stuff. In the Quest, some of the inter-chapter machinima are quite nice, presented in wide-screen format.
The audio mix provides the proper ambiance to the game, and truly enhances gameplay. Voice acting is fair to good, while the background sounds and music are stellar.The creature AI is good, but predictable, as necessitated by the type of game this is. In order to battle effectively, each duelist really does need to know what to expect from each of the creatures, and it has to be consistent. Secret Level did a nice job with the AI duelists, however, creating some downright nasty opponents that you'll have to learn to deal with.The PC version did crash a couple of times on my plain white vanilla test system (Intel board, P4-2.4 chip, 1 gb RAM, Ti4600 video, SoundBlaster Live! audio), but not much more than UT2003 or any other Unreal-engine game has misbehaved. I did not notice any nastiness on the Xbox version.
Gameplay is where it's all at, though, and from that perspective, MTG:BG fills the bill. If you've played the card game of MTG, or have played similar points-based RPGs, you'll really appreciate just how well Secret Level has pulled off moving the turn-based world of the card game to the interactive, real-time 3D world of the PC and Xbox. Now, it's *not* a card game clone; it's a 3D representation of what might go on in the card game, would it be real-time and 3D, with the added bonus of making you work and have some skills, in addition to putting together a winning deck. One gets a real sense of excitement and some sweaty palms playing MTG:BG, and a victory over a tough opponent is so satisfying, you'll surely be coming back for more.Overall, MTG:BG is a welcome diversion from the FPS world, without giving up the bloodlust for fighting. It's certainly challenging enough, and provides just enough SP action through the Quest and Arcade Duel modes to get you up-to-speed to play online, where the real fun and challenges are. It's the kind of game that, once you've stopped playing it for a day or two, you find yourself wanting to play again, and it's easy to continue playing for several hours at a time. While there's a minor problem finding online players right now, you can chalk some of that up to the game being so new. Not acceptable, however, is the lack of a working PC stats page from GameSpy - hopefully this will be fixed soon.Final result: Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds earns a 7.5/10System Requirements
- Operating System: Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP
- Processor: Pentium® III 800 MHz (Pentium® 4 1.3 GHz recommended)
- Memory: 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
- Hard Disk Space: 1.4 GB Free
- CD-ROM Drive: 8X Speed
- Video: 32 MB video card with Hardware T&L support* (32 MB video card with Hardware T&L support* recommended)
- Sound: Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP-compatible sound card* (Sound Blaster® Audigy™ series sound card recommended)
- DirectX®: DirectX® version 9.0b or higher
- Internet Connection: Broadband Internet connection required for online play* Indicates device should be compatible with DirectX® version 9.0b or higher