Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers review (PS3) ★

Review by Nathan Hardisty
UK Certification 7+ | UK Price £8.49 | Region PAL | Developer Stainless Games | Publisher Wizards of the Coast

Nevertheless, I gave it a try and, thankfully, it asked me how much I knew about the card game, or whether I’d played it before, just as we got started. I thought it would take me by the hand, let me learn the ropes and then allow me to get into the ease of matchmaking. But what I found was, to me, something actually quite insulting. I’m a newbie and was willing to learn the ways of the cards, but unfortunately the game just didn't want me to.

For starters, it has this rather cumbersome interface with button and trigger icons everywhere containing little lines of text telling you what each one of them does. There’s this big giant HUD around the main screen, so it’s already hard to find any joy in the visuals of the game. Not that I was expecting a pretty one, but coming from someone who’s just discovered all these cards, it would be nice if it had artwork that was appealing to the eye.

The rules are explained in a combination of both prose and instruction, which is confusing as hell and a classic example of what often fails video game writing: over-written pieces of textual information that I vitally need to know in order to actually play the game. This isn’t the type of info you can lay in a small practical like Portal, and when your audience is clearly willing to learn, you shouldn’t abuse their lack of knowledge.

After going over the tutorial's notes and learning the ropes as best I could, I tried to condense the game down into something I could understand. The game explained that for every turn you can play what are known as lands cards, which enable you to then play creature cards and gain Mana to play spell cards (5 Mana per spell card). It's quite simple really, but I would’ve happily read just a little text than go through a patronising and horrible excuse for a "tutorial".

Each player starts off with 20 lives and the main objective is to slaughter your counterpart. I’m going to admit that I’m an avid chess player and find absolute pleasure in those late game stages when everything is at stack and the littlest mistake can bring your whole tactical plan down. Chess is a mind game full of psychological twists which I’ve seen in my friends whenever they play a card game between themselves.

If I’m being honest then I was perhaps actually somewhat drawn into the game itself. There’s a loose feeling of satisfaction whenever you bring down a creature or your opponent. I can see where the designers are coming from, but in a card game where textual information is king, then the interface is the number one priority and that has been implemented extremely poorly.

The online functionality of the game is hindered by the fact that there was zero connection stability at the time. I was told that there were no servers available and that I basically couldn’t play online, not that I would actually want to since I doubt the gameplay would be compelling, even to someone who is avidly into Magic: The Gathering. If I were a player, I’d rather be competing in person with my friends rather than screen-to-screen over the internet.

All in all, Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers suffers from the same gimmick as The Eye of Judgement: being a video game. Some card games can easily be transferred to a video game context and become fully fledged time hoarders. However, here, the same mistake of that aforementioned game is repeated in that a horrible interface, lack of empathy for the player and other issues plague its ability to connect with you.