This is dropping in a few days on Steam (and I believe XBLA and possibly PSN as well) and it looks like it’s going to be a helluva package for $10.
Overview:
Archenemy mode:
The new UI looks like it’s really nice, all new decks and cards to unlock, multiple campaign modes, true co-op, and the ability to pull cards OUT of the pre-made decks as well as unlock and add new cards. Should be quite a bit of fun, and you can’t beat the price!
Is anyone else looking forward to this one?
I am, I definitely got my money’s worth it out of the first game, though of course I wish it had some more deck customization. This one looks even better, and yea, Archenemy mode seems very interesting.
lack of deck customization makes me hate the first one.
without it, it’s not a proper MTG game.
So how does this work? Pre-made decks? Can you gain cards? Are you supposed to kick in more cash for cards? I watched the 8 minute video and didn’t feel like those questions were answered, although I was only partly paying attention to it as it played.
I really liked the Sid Meier version, and wouldn’t mind a modernized version of something like that.
the only difference between new one and the current one on steam is that
Current game only allowing you to add more cards that you unlocked to a deck and removed those cards.
New game will allow player to remove some cards from the deck as you unlock more cards.
ydejin you are thinking of the MTG Shandalar one which is from Microprose. that game is awesome, and they should make more like it, instead this premade deck crap.
Basically they are afraid that new MTG will cannibalized from their MTG online game if they allow deck building.
Pre-made decks where you unlock cards by playing with it, and you can choose whether to add those to the deck and (NEW FOR 2012!) get rid of some of the existing cards, too.
Cannot wait for this. Already pre-ordered on Steam and I’ll have it on Xbox too.
Yeah, I had a solid $10 worth of fun out of the first one, but the lack of deckbuilding and overall simplicity of available cards really made the game go from good to mediocre over time rather than jump to greatness.
This package looks like it addresses all of my concerns. For $10 I think it’ll be a steal.
Does anyone know if the decks are completely customizable or if you still have restrictions to deal with?
Answered my own question - looks like the lands are fixed but everything else can be replaced with the only limit being the 60-card minimum. Assuming the decks are like the first game the main restriction this will create will be that some color combinations might not be workable until DLC.
Sounds great… pre-purchased on Steam.
So far, this is a total upgrade. The decks are more interesting ( I LOVE the new artifact deck), the game looks great, and, best of all, I love what they did with the card unlock system.
What do I mean? After my first win, I unlocked THREE angel feathers. You know what that means? It means fuck you angel feathers, you’re gone forever. I don’t know why they feel the need to put them in the game in the first place, but if they MUST do so, this is how you do it. After that, I unlocked another 3 (I think?) mans for my deck. That’s right, cards can unlock in blocks now.
Another important change is the way the decks are at the beginning. You may recall how deck progression went in the original game- your deck would start out abysmal, sloooowwwly move on to playable, and finally to being pretty good (maybe). Well, I am thrilled to report that these new decks start out as at least “playable” right out of the box.
The only downside is, on planeswalker difficulty, the AI has made a couple of suspect moves. Nothing that has cost it the game, but still. Regardless, for $10 it’s just a no-brainer purchase if you like Magic but don’t want to throw down real money.
I’m mjlaufgr on XBLA, feel free to look me up for a game!
I am GrouchyWillig on Xbox Live, and I picked this up this morning on XBLA, but wont be able to play till tonight. Still, friend me and I would totally be up for some games.
From what I saw in the 5 minutes before work, it looks like a good upgrade to the old system.
So, question - is this an expansion to the existing Duels game or a new game? Because it’s not showing up on my various Live front pages, so I might need to drill down for it.
Second question - I assume that the decks are still ridiculous in that “here’s some cards that you can add to your deck but you don’t get to take out any of the cards that were already in the deck to get down to 60 like the obsessive compulsive impulse in your brain is screaming at you to do?”
Brian, from what I saw I think you can alter the decks as you like within their original contents and the cards you have unlocked for them. So, much more flexibility than the original game. You can’t, say, unlock card A and place it in deck B, but you can modify deck A as you wish (down to 60, I assume).
Nope, they let you remove cards from the decks now. The land system is still a fixed thing, but they definitely let you remove cards (see Reldan’s post above).
And its a totally new game that showed up in the Live front page for me this morning…
Ahhhh…this morning. That would be why I didn’t see it last night.
I’ll totally be buying this when I get home. Hopefully the expansions will be a little bit less confusing this time.
Definitely a pickup, I just need to figure out what platform…
So the two platforms won’t be multiplayer compatible right? They’re on different services (Steam vs XBox Live) so I don’t expect PC gamers to be able to play with XBox gamers. I’m picking this up on Steam once it unlocks. Once I’ve checked out a few decks, I’d be up for trying it multiplayer. I’m Sharpe67 on Steam.
Note - when you ask your player if they have played Magic
a) Not at all
b) A little
c) A lot
and the player selects ‘c’, please feel free to let them bypass the tutorial. I know how the game works and being told to play my creature before I can play my land ‘because the tutorial said so’ is really annoying.
Once I got past that, the game becomes more enjoyable although their early ‘puzzles’ are very much not-puzzly.
It’s really too bad. I wish more games were like Portal 2 and allowed cross platform play. Is it because of the assholes at Sony and Microsoft that prevent this or do the developers not care about having a larger community?