I’m seriously thinking about picking this up. I badly want something original and fun to do with my PS3, and I like the idea of this. Never played a CCG but this seems like a fun way in, and $60-something bucks for the PlayStation Eye + game bundle is a good deal.
I need people to play with, though. Anyone else thinking about getting it?
I’m a fan of CCGs and I like weird console peripherals (eyes the Steel Battalion and Samba De Amigo controllers gathering dust in the corner) but alas I have not spent the money for a PS3 but instead upgraded my PC. If I did have one I’d be buying this game in a heartbeat.
It got a 4 in Edge. I think you can safely skip it, Gary.
Doesn’t Edge lowball everything? The Penny Arcade guys seem to be digging it, but then they’re CCG freaks.
Would’ve gotten 8 on Wii.
So true…
Whitta, you’ve never gotten into CCGs? Good god, man, I was giving you far more geek cred than you deserved.
I don’t know what your turn-based cred is like, but you might try Armageddon Empires as an example of a game that makes awesome use of the CCG schtick. Alternatively, give Culdcept a shot one of these days. Neither is particularly flashy, and only one is a console game. But barring finding friends foolish enough to dive into an actual table-top CCG with you, those are two good ways to see if that whole brand of obsessive-compulsive clicks with you.
-Tom, recovering CCG addict
The game looks pretty weak. It looks more like tic-tac-toe meets rock, paper, scissors than a clever, deep CCG. I don’t really care about the hardware, but I was looking forward to the game. Especially because Culdcept 360 was cancelled.
Edit: Okay, apparently it wasn’t cacelled. Just delayed for over a year.
If it was coming out on 360, eventually yes.
But, since I only own a 360, then no, no I won’t be. Looks interesting though.
Actually it seems to have a very good card game behind it. Shacknews has a good review of it. I preordered it from Amazon but they delayed it a week, the bastards. $10 cheaper than everywhere else so I kept the order. Doubt I will go crazy buying cards, having flashbacks to MoTG Legends and driving 300 miles to buy 2 boxes of boosters, but I can’t wait to start playing, haven’t touched a CCG since then.
My hope would be there is some CCG depth to the game. I’ve only seen and played demos at Comic-Con and it felt a bit shallow with no real card interactions other than combat. Each card is a monster so no real effect or spell cards, but facing and terrain placement does matter quite a bit.
Again I only saw demos so maybe they were trying to avoid getting into any real complex combos. I’m pretty sure the WoTC folks are behind the card game so they’ve got the pedigree.
[EDIT] I see from the shacknews review that there are some spell cards along with monsters, so that’s very cool.
The card game is pretty damn simple based upon my experience playing a couple full games of it at Gencon. This is coming from my perspective of having played a lot of CCGs in the past - Magic, VS, Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Star Wars, WoW, etc…
While you could theoretically play the game without a PS3 and the Eye, you wouldn’t want to because the game is so goddamn twiddly that you’d go crazy trying to keep track of all the numbers, states, and statuses of everything. However, with the PS3 tracking everything for you, the game ends up being maybe slightly more complex than the card game they had in FF8 (Triple Triad?).
They designed a game simple enough that a child could play it. Now if only children could afford the console and the gadgetry needed this experiment might actually have worked.
No offense to them, but the PA guys fucking play Pokemon. Their recommendation for the EoJ card game means jack nothing to me.
It’s a cool idea, but I don’t know that a CCG really needs this sort of presentation. I could go play a regular CCG, or one done as a computer game, and both would be less of a hassle to set up. Auto resolving the rules is nice, but CCG’s aren’t rocket science, and sifting around to find the card pulled by the PS3 is a little wonky.
But… I like the idea. If there were some way to do a killer board game where the board and pieces were your interface, it might allow for a sort of hybrid, with the randomization of a computer board game but the accessible immediacy of actually moving the units.
Oh, and a wireless camera would help.
The pokemon CCG is actually great. And I mean that in all seriousness. The biggest shame is simply the franchise, because the game has a lot of depth and good balance.
Anyway, on to EoJ. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this manage to incorporate the worst of electronic CCGs and cardboard CCGs, then add a few more negatives on top?
And what are the perks?
Here’s what I can tell:
Drawbacks:
-Have to pay large up-front investment cost, like an all-in-one electronic CCG. (i.e. Culcept or the like.)
-Oh, but that only gets you a starter. Now you have to go spend more money on cards like the abusive cost struction of a traditional cardboard CCG.
-You have to have a PS3, a TV, a camera stand with wired Eye Toy, and a large flat surface (table?) in order to play. This would not work at my house without moving furniture.
-The cards are butt-ass ugly. I realize this is to facilitate the tech tricks, (green arrows allow alignment, ‘runes’ are unique barcode,) but the fact is that they’re still butt-ass ugly with a small amount of practical or attractive space.
-If you want to play online, the PS3 tells you what cards you draw, which (as I understand it) means you then have to manually find that card in your deck before you can play. So every turn, you’re digging through your deck for specific cards. I’d rather, you know, play the “make interesting decisions” game, not the “keep looking through my deck for cards” game.
-You have a cumbersome ‘deck registration’ process every time you want to edit your deck, involving putting cards in front of the damn camera, waiting for it to register the card, then repeating for the entire deck.
Benefits:
-Cool eye candy and nifty tech trick.
It just seems like other than the novelty of seeing a 3D unit popping out of your card, there is absolutely no gain to this system compared to an all-digital CCG. And I’m sorry, but that sounds like a retarded number of hoops to jump through all for that novelty.
I want to want to want this, but it seems like one of the highest-hassle, worst-value, and gimmick-reliant products I’ve ever seen. So if I’m missing something, I’m totally serious when I ask you to clue me in.
This is just the kind of game I’ll get all excited for, finally buy it, play it for two hours and then stick in storage!
Or how about a cable longer than three feet? On The !UP Show they pointed out just how short the cable was. It looked like it was under tension despite how close they had set up the Eye to the PS3. And there’s no break-away, so if you’ve got kids, you might wanna lock yourself in a room while you play.
Or you could lock the kids in a room while you play. Make sure to sound like you’re having a really fun time too.
From my experience standing near the booth at GenCon all day each day is that it involves effeminate men squinting a lot.
I checked it out briefly and it seemed like a fairly simple game tied to a flashy gimmick.
Say WHAT?
From now? I thought it was a Q1 release? (Sorry for the derail, EOJ fans.)
Gary, I’m with you.
I have a PS3.
I have a disposable income.
I like the idea of innovation.
I’ve never played a card game.
That said, I just can’t justify it.