Being a big fan of games on both boards and consoles, I’ve been following closely the latest joint venture of Sony, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast; The Eye of Judgment. This is basically a tactical card game that can be played using the PlayStation3 to help out with the book-keeping and spicing up the game with battle animations. The result looks very much like the chess-like game seen in Star Wars - parodied so brilliantly somewhere in Season 2 of Fururama. Anyway, here’s some initial impressions of the game.
Getting started with the game is not gratis; you need one of the many versions of the PlayStation3, a PlayStationEye camera, the Eye of Judgment software, a deck of 30 Eye of Judgment cards per player, a playing mat, a sufficiently big table with sufficient light. (The concept is nicely summed up in this Penny Arcade strip. Also worth a read is their impressions of the game here.) And voilà it sends you back to the early days of Magic: the Gathering. (At least me, since I’ve hardly toyed with CCGs since the big Magic-wave swept our high school lateish last century.)
The rules are accessible enough, but lots of stats and numbers makes one realise that this game was indeed designed with computer aid in mind - you can play without, but it would be a tiresome process. This is very interesting in a board gaming context - from board games being one of the main influences of earlyish computer games (Civilization et al.), via board games being heavily influenced by computer games mechanics (Puerto Rico et al.) to now also needing the aid of the computer to play.
Each turn you draw one card, receive two mana (colourless and cumulative), have the possibility to perform various actions (like turning or activating a creature) or casting spells before summoning a creature that attacks if possible. First one to occupy five of the nine squares, at the end of one’s turn, wins. That’s it.
You can play against the not too shabby AI of the game on various difficulty levels using different decks of cards. This is a very good way to get to know the rules and the basic tactics involved. (I would recommend just jumping into a game, after reading a couple of articles like this, and learn from there, rather than watching the horrible boring in-game training films.) There are also tools to help you to construct your own personalized decks, like the deck-builder and the fact that you can let the computer battle himself using different decks etc.
These decks can be registered as your “online decks” and thus be used to play online against other geeks. This I haven’t tried yet as I’ve only got the starter deck that came with the game bundle, and haven’t dared trying this against the fancy pants decks of the Internet. And here lies the big abers; do you want to invest the time and money it takes to create your perfect deck or is the game balanced enough that you can have fun with any OK deck if you play well? Why not just copying cards yourself instead of throwing money at booster packs to find the ultra rares? Is this cheating? (The only ones loosing on this seems to be trio behind the games(, and indirectly us if they don’t sell enough and cancel future expansion packs)…) The cards, along with certain restrictions on how many similar cards one can have in a deck etc., seems balanced enough to not really be inflicted by copyists, but who knows. I guess, for me, this will be a game to play with friends - on- or off-line…
There are other annoyances as well. Some weird implementation choices can be a bit bothersome. Like the fact that it can be difficult to distinguish landscape types while summoning creatures, whereas this is crucial to the well-being of the creatures… (I know, one can click the R1 to get more details, but this shouldn’t be necessary.) Let’s hope these minor quibbles can be patched away… Also the Eye is not perfect and needs correct lighting, (Still, when one has found this sweet spot, it behaves impressingly well!) and who on earth wrote the ghastly music?!
Also it’s not a game for everybody, I guess. Edge threw it a 4/10 note in their December issue, claiming: “The virtual interface does little to help players and, if anything, slows the game down as you wait for it to catch up with things that are already evident to players – such as victory, failure and boredom.” (Maybe they didn’t find the option to turn of the battle sequences? :-)) For me I think the fact that the computer is keeping track of the numbers and the rules is alone interesting enough to boot the PS3 to play the game - the fancy animations a nice bonus.
All in all I can recommend the game to all PS3 owners that are curious about newfangled ways to interact with a game or just interested in board games - and quite possible a glimpse into the future of board gaming?
Selected links:
Board Game Geek user review.
Metacritic. (75/100)
Ars Technica review. (VIII/X)
1UP review. (80/100)
PlayStation 3: Eye of Judgment Demonstration
Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog.
Update 06/11: a small review-video from GameTrailers:
1 Response to “Horsie to pointy guy six”