Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers review on iPad

I was pretty into Magic cards as a sixth grader. I remember losing a lot. I remember games being fun but mostly I remember thinking "man this hobby is expensive!" It was the last thought that ultimately stuck with me and led me to abandon the hobby after about a year. I didn't think about Magic much for the next ten plus years, until i discovered Duels of the Planeswalkers on Xbox Live.

Duels of the Planeswalkers was an excellent, if somewhat simplified version of Magic. Crucially all of the systems are still intact and the game managed to digitize the over all feel of playing a game of Magic. Equally crucially for a nerd like myself, was the ability to play against a computer, dropping the "friends needed to enjoy this game" count from one to zero.

The original Duels of the Planeswalkers, was  a huge success, and Wizards of the Coast has followed it up every year with a new version, generally featuring more and different combinations of Magic cards, along with new play modes. However since Wizards of the Coast is still in the business of selling real ACTUAL Magic cards, they have limited the Duels of the Planeswalkers experience, never allowing players to build their own decks. This is a major part of what makes Magic fun. Unfortunately it was also a big part of reason why the Duels of the Planeswalkers games quickly started to get stale. While I played countless hours of the first two Duels of the Planeswalkers games, I just couldn't get into the 2013 version.

Never the less, a new version is out for 2014, and I thought to myself "this time it'll be different." And by golly for once I was right. Magic 2014 is interesting because in many ways it simplifies things, offering fewer play modes than in the last couple of versions. For instance, four player skirmishes and multiplayer games are still available in Magic 2014, but there is no longer a single player campaign built around it. Personally, I find this to be a good thing. While the four player battles of the past looked good on paper, the reality was that I didn't have the patience for it. Late game situations in particular saw AI taking what seemed like decades to make a decision as simple as "play a land card."

The trade off however is that Duels of the Planeswakers is finally FINALLY offering some sort of digital deck building. It's not an enormous part of the game however, and it's still pretty obvious that Wizards of the Coast is being very conservative in order to avoid cannibalizing actual card sales. But deck building has finally arrived and it's actually pretty good fun while it lasts.

The deck building portion of Magic 2014 takes place in it's own little single player campaign and in online play. Dubbed "sealed play" mode, players initially start out with six "booster packs" which are virtually opened and spread out on the table for examination. It's nicely done and does a passable job of capturing that "what'd I get?" moment fairly credibly. The game makes sure players all get the same number of "rare" and "uncommon" cards, but the actual cards themselves appear to be random.

Once players have opened all six booster packs they are presented with an excellent deck building interface, which allows sorting by color, rarity, type and casting cost. Any amount of land can be added for free and the game will tell players just how strong their deck is. Several other useful statistics are visible at a glance, the interface driving home just what a great game Magic 2014 could be if Wizards of the Coast would allow it.

Unfortunately, two decks, a short single player campaign and multiplayer are all that's allowed in sealed play mode. Additional deck slots can be purchased for real money. For some, this amount of content will be enough. The inclusion of multiplayer is particularly important, given Wizards of the Coast stand offishness regarding deck building. Indeed, sealed play is pretty good. It's just visibly and very obviously not as good as it could be.

Regular non-sealed play is, of course back and better than ever. The campaign feels a little bit shorter this time, but it flows nicely, alternating between serious battles and smaller puzzle like encounters. While previous versions of  Duels of the Planeswalkers have featured these before, 2014's encounters feel much more fleshed out and are generally "themed" better, being tied in with a loose narrative that passes for a plot.

The game is otherwise much as its always been, though the default decks are a little more interesting to me than the last couple of times around. This could just be a personal preference, but i'm defintely enjoying the regular single player campaign much more than I did with last years version.

It should also be noted that for the first time, I'm playing this game on an iPad, rather than on an Xbox or a PC. I bought the game within hours of its release and have thus far encountered ZERO bugs. The interface is excellent, the controls, smooth and intuitive. It just works really well on iPad and I strongly encourage owners of multiple platforms to spring for this version if they can.

Magic 2014 is on sale now in the app store, on Xbox Live and on Steam. It's ten dollars and worth every penny to any casual Magic fan. Pick it up right now if this describes you, its a glorious return to form after last years somewhat disappointing version. Yes, its not perfect, being visibly and obviously not as good as it could be. However forgive it for its deliberate hamstringing and there's still an excellent game to be found at an unbeatable price.

Magic can be found on the App store here, and on steam here.

Trackmania 2: Stadium Review

I've been vaguely aware of the Trackmania series since it's introduction ten plus years ago. However for some reason I've never actually owned any of the games, often dismissing them as being just a touch too arcadey or simply choosing to spend my money on something I wanted just a tiny bit more. This time though, the latest game is only ten dollars. I figured I'd give it a try and if I liked what I saw, I'd pick up other games in the series at a later date.

After spending a day playing Trackmania 2: Stadium I still don't know weather or not I like it enough to recommend it and to continue with the series. It's honestly one of the simplest games i've played in recent memory, putting a huge emphasis on the fundamentals. And while those fundamentals are reasonably sound, I just don't know if there's enough complexity to keep me entertained in the long run.

While i've never played a Trackmania game, I'm not entirely new to the car platforming genre. I played Hard Drivin and Race Drivin as a kid and eventually spent many hours playing San Fransico Rush. I even have Jet Car Stunts on my phone (it's great, check it out.) Trackmania: Stadium is a solid update to those titles which is good, but it manages to add surprisingly little to the genre which is much less good.

As the title would suggest, Trackmania is about tracks, not about cars. There is only one car, it handles how it handles and is capable and fast enough to complete any track set forth by the game. This keeps things simple, it makes track editing and creation much easier and makes the game incredibly fair and balanced with regards to multiplayer. However, it also makes the game infinitely more boring to a car fanatic like myself.

Such a blatant disregard for the automobile really bugs me. I originally played this game with a wheel and pedals, but found that it controlled much better with an xbox 360 controller. I do not doubt that some of the best Trackmania players out there simply use a keyboard to control their cars. This is awesome for all of those who view the car a means to an end. Much less so for those of us who view the car as an end in its self.

The handling model in particular, is boring enough that I have trouble playing the game for long periods of time. It works flawlessly, but there is little to no joy to be found in the actual movement and physics of the car on the road. The challenge comes from picking the correct line, not from making the car actually stick to its line at the highest possible speed.

The tradeoff of course, is that there's really very little for me to complain about with regards to the tracks. They are awesome. And while I wish they weren't constrained by the stadium setting, the ten dollar price of admission and the fact that there are other Trackmanian games without such constraints leaves this argument without a leg to stand on. The variety within the stadium environment is staggering and the environment its self is actually plenty big enough to keep things interesting. The track editor is fantastic, easy to use and allows for endless possibilities.

As a budget game, Trackmania is light on single player content. There aren't a whole ton of predefined levels, and the difficulty curve leaves plenty to be desired. Unlocking new tracks goes from "incredibly easy" to "nearly impossible" in an extremely short amount of time. I could also have dealt with a bit less of an emphasis on time when it comes to unlocking levels. Some of the harder levels are challenging enough to simply complete, having to do them extremely quickly as well, just makes for repetition ad nauseum. I appreciate wanting to master a level, but some people simply want to explore.

Multiplayer on the other hand, is pretty brilliant. If you hate waiting in lobbies, Trackmania might just be the multiplayer game for you. Generally, about fifty cars are out on the track at one time. There is a time limit to finish the race and whoever gets the best time on one single pass through the course, wins. There is no clipping between players, so everyone else is essentially a harmless ghost. The beauty of it is twofold: one, it allows for immediate restarts if you mess up and two, it gives you a ton of other players to follow if you get lost. Multiplayer also makes use of user created levels, which can often be even more fun than what comes with the game.

Overall, Trackmania 2: Stadium is a solid little title for ten dollars. Many of my complaints are a function of genre, rather than the game its self. It is light on bells and whistles, but it never pretends to be anything it isn't. Trackmania 2: Stadium is a perfectly serviceable little driving platformer with loads of replay value and a great multilayer experience.

Trackmania 2: Stadium can be found on steam here.

Gunpoint

With so many indie games available these days, it's sometimes hard to know what to get excited for. However Gunpoint managed to build a fair amount of hype for its innovative and simplified take on stealth action gameplay. After watching a little bit of the gameplay on a youtube feed, I decided to get the game when it was released, which happened to be the other day.

After playing the game for a few hours I can definitively say two things about gunpoint: It's really good and it's really short. According to Steam, I got through gunpoint in a grand total of 2.8 hours. Was that 2.8 hours worth the nine dollars i paid for it? Absolutely. Gunpoint impresses with it's slick and simplistic controls, it's great writing and it's stealth puzzler gameplay. The only low point comes at the end when you realize the game is over.

I knew I was going to like gunpoint within the first five minutes of the game. The plot is explained via phone calls between the protagonist, Richard Conway and various characters that hire him as a "freelance spy." Conway is caught in a sticky situation and is implicated in a murder. In the best noir tradition, he ends up working on both sides of the eventual conflict, with plenty of deceit and back room deals to go around. During these portions, players are given limited control over what Conway can say, playing him as either a straight shooter, or as a hilariously sarcastic pessimist. Regardless, the writing in Gunpoint great, especially for such a short indie game with so much else going for it.

Gameplay at first appears to be a standard side scrolling stealth action affair. However there are several notable differences between Gunpoint and say Mark of the Ninja. In most stealth games, being seen involves running around until guards forget you're there. In Gunpoint getting seen pretty much means getting shot and loading a saved game. It's much more "stealth" than it is "action"

The other big gameplay piece is the ability to rewire electronics. With a swipe of the mouse wheel, the view changes to highlight all the electronic devices in the building. This means everything from doors, to motion detectors to cameras to trap doors. This can all be messed with and connected to one another. For instance, players can rewire a camera, so that when it detects them, instead of setting off an alarm it opens a door. Or a trap door, above which a guard is standing. The possibilities are endless, really bringing a strong puzzle element into the game.

The catalyst for all of this is a set of simple, usable and intuitive controls. WASD move around and activate switches, press and hold the mouse button for jumping (this works really well, just trust me) and a swipe of the mouse wheel puts everything in electronics mode. The mouse pointer also turns red it is in an area that guards can see. Everything about controlling and interacting with the game makes sense and is intuitive.

Gunpoint impressed me. I wish it was longer, but my understanding is that it was made pretty much entirely by one guy. I'm not going to hold its short length against it considering it was only nine dollars. Anyone on the fence about this game should go pick it up. It's well worth your time. 

Combo Crew

I normally try to avoid budget titles from the app store. From time to time there will be a diamond in the rough, but I mostly avoid anything under three dollars. I like games with a decent amount of production value. I also find that cheaper games often try to make up the difference with lots of in-app-purchases, which pisses me off to no end.

I was wary of Combo Crew for these reasons. I'd seen it around for a few days and though it looked interesting, I was extremely worried it was just a Trojan Horse for in-app-purchases. Eventually a review by toucharcade.com convinced me that I should check it out. Against my better judgement, I decided to plunk down two dollars and see what the fuss was about.

As it turns out I was very wrong about Combo Crew. In fact, I have yet to find ANY in-app-purchases in the game. This tickles me silly, because on the surface of it, the game is begging for them. The entire premise revolves around a fairly simplistic combat system, that would quickly get boring if not for the massive number of unlockable moves. The game even has a standard and premium currency system, but again there is no option to use real money to buy more of it.

This fact alone is enough to convince me to sing Combo Crew's praises, but the game its self isn't half bad. It is still a budget title, offering comparatively little to do other than beat up an endless string of bad guys, broken up into waves. However what it does do, it does well.

The first thing people will notice about Combo Crew are its simplistic yet totally functional controls. Virtual D-pads on touch devices almost never work in a satisfying way. I feel like they always detract from the experience, rendering a great game merely good and an okay game nearly unplayable. Combo Crew smartly avoids them, using a series of swipes and two finger swipes to choose attacks and combos. It works really well and is a good example of the type of innovation I like seeing in touch devices, marrying old school gameplay with a creative and new way of doing things. The only time it falls down are during the "super moves" which task the player with swiping as quickly as possible for a short period of time. Thankfully these super moves do not constitute the vast majority of the gameplay.

The graphics are also nice, though to be brutally honest i'm not a fan of the art style. Still, there is a clear artistic direction present, the color palette is nice and varied and the animations are top notch.

The sounds are even better and really add to the game. Sound effects match the cartoony graphics perfectly, with perfect punching and kicking sounds that feel forceful yet not over the top. A good punch sound can go a long way when it comes to player satisfaction. The music is also good, catchy and upbeat, with an increasing tempo as things get more hectic.

Combo Crew's weaknesses stem from a lack of verity. Level backgrounds are static, breaking the illusion that I'm playing an old school brawler like Final Fight. Only four combos can be selected at any one time as well, making for gameplay that isn't particularly varied at any given moment. Often times i'll end up repeatedly spamming one or two slightly overpowered combos. 

However for two dollars, these transgressions can be forgiven. Combo Crew solidly exceeded my expectations and has earned a place on my iPad. It's a silly mindless beat em up that never tries to be anything else. Despite this it still manages to innovate while pulling the whole thing off with style. Not bad for a budget game.

Combo Crew for iPad and for iPhone