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    Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers

    Game » consists of 5 releases. Released Jun 17, 2009

    Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers is a streamlined, user-friendly, version of the popular trading card game. Take one of eight decks and engage in a battle of wits against the computer or online opponents.

    naughton's Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers (Xbox 360 Games Store) review

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    A great way to play Magic on the cheap, but not without issues.

        Most of my free time in my teenage years was spent at the comic store down the street playing Magic the Gathering.  Any money I got from bagging groceries, or from doing odd jobs around the neighborhood went towards buying new booster packs or singles to build decks with. But as I grew up, and my wallet was faced with gas, insurance, rent and such, it became apparent that there just wasn't enough money floating around to keep playing Magic. So I waited for the cards I had to stop being tournament legal, and parted ways.

        Enter Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers.

        I was a little intimidated about playing Magic since I haven't for so long, but it all came back to me surprisingly fast. The interface is very slick, as well as incredibly functional.  Navigating the cards in your hand is a breeze, as the game sorts incoming cards by type, color, and cost. You can also set up the sorting priorities in the options, which is a nice touch. Any special feature on a card, like Flying, First Strike, Protection, etc., all have special symbols which are displayed on the side of the cards, making it easy to tell what creatures have what abilities on the playfield.  You can also zoom in on any card, at any time, to get a closer look. If there is any question as to what a card can do, there is a full glossary of game terms available in the options, which can be accessed at any time. Simply put, Magic plays on XBL as it would on a table with the actual cards, and in some ways, it's better.

        Duels of the Planeswalkers has a good feature set for an XBL game. A tutorial mode is present for those who haven't played Magic before, and it does a good job of explaining how the game works. Campaign sees you playing against the AI in a series of regular, start-to-finish Magic games. You only start with two 60 card decks, and unlock more decks By playing through the Campaign. Games usually last 10-15 minutes, so it's easy to unlock all the decks without a huge time investment. Each deck also has 17 additional cards that can be unlocked. Challenge mode puts you into various scenarios where you have to win the game on that turn with the cards you have. It's a lot of fun, and can get pretty difficult. There is also a co-op campaign(offline only), and online 4 player support. There is also a section on the main menu for DLC, so expect new decks, cards, or possibly even game types in the future.

        Everything seems great, but after playing for a while, some really bad design choices can make the experience a whole lot less enjoyable. The first of which has to do with those 17 unlockable cards for each deck. It seems like a great way to introduce a little more variety into your decks, but there is no way to take any of the 60 default cards out. Any Magic player knows that a major part of deckbuilding is your mana/spell ratio, and DotP gives you no way to manage it once you start unlocking cards. If you unlock and use all the cards in a given deck, you'll be playing a 77 card deck, but it'll only have the land for a 60 card deck. It might not seem like a big deal, but if you play anymore than 63-64 cards in your deck, you're going to get into situations where you aren't getting enough mana. With the single color decks, its more of a minor issue, but with the 2-3 color decks, it really limits the usefulness of these unlockable cards. I don't see how the developers could have overlooked this when dealing with a property that has nearly limitless amounts of customization.

    Another big problem is the Black/Green "Ears of the Elves", and just how unbalanced it is. There is a creature card in the deck called Elvish Champion which gives all elves +1/+1 and Forestwalk(this makes said elves unblockable if the opponent has a Forest in play). This wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for 2 things. First, you can get four of them in the deck. Secondly, there are 4(out of 8) decks which use Forests as a primary source of mana. Add this to the fact that there is no double-blind deck selection in multiplayer, and you'll quickly see that it sucks to be you if you like playing any of the other decks with green in them.

    Overall, MtG: Duels of the Planeswalkers is a very enjoyable game, at least the singleplayer portion. But once you get into the meatier multiplayer section, it's limitations and balance issues can really stab it in the back. All that said, it's still the cheapest way to get your Magic fix.

    Other reviews for Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers (Xbox 360 Games Store)

      I'll counter that 0

      Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers is a game that's hard to judge. It's going to provide something radically different for different people, and your own enjoyment of it will depend heavily on your history with the Magic card game itself. In short, Duels of the Planeswalkers is a great introduction for newcomers, but might not offer the level of depth and customization that Magic veterans ultimately seek.For those not in the know, Magic the Gathering is a ridiculously complex (but...

      5 out of 5 found this review helpful.

      Just the right amount of Magic? 0

      I played Magic a good bit when I was in college ten years ago.  I was at the level that I participated in local tournaments and maybe bought multiple boxes of a set so I could get 4 Rares to put in a deck.  I stopped playing as my life got more full, and now I play once in a blue moon.  I have to admit the thought of trying to get back into it is a daunting one because I don't want to spend the time accumulating all of the cards needed to play at the level I want to.So when I heard about Magic: ...

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

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