Developer: EA Phenomic

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Release Date: March 23, 2009

System: PC

ESRB Rating: T

Official Web site

0:00 I was big fan of Magic: The Gathering back in grade school, so part of me has high hopes this will satisfy my long-dormant collectible card game jones. Another part of me is pessimistic that just an hour will be enough for me to really get into it.

0:10 OK, I'm not going to go into much detail on the mess of stalled downloads, frozen computers and lengthy file checks that preceded getting this game's 2.6 GB of files downloaded and working on my computer. Suffice it to say I'm docking the game 10 minutes of play for the mere annoyance. I could easily take the whole hour, because it took much longer than that overall, but I'm not that petty.

0:12 Lots of animated logos precede the title, which appears in a blaze of light and fire amid some purple smoke. EPIC!

0:13 Character creation time. My chosen name, Ace, already exists, so I go with boring old KyleOrl. I can choose from dozens of generic fantasy character portraits -- the elf warrior, the skeleton, the dwarf. I choose one that looks like an exploding supernova -- or possibly an exploding airship. Whatever. On to the "introduction map."

0:16 A decent amount of loading precedes ... even more loading. "The Skylord Moon will guide you through your first mission," says the loading screen.

0:18 "Welcome, Skylord," says a scantily clad female tutor. "The Forge of Creation gives you the ability to bring legendary creatures to life and command them to aid the mortals of this world. To illustrate, I will summon a squad of famous Northguards for you to command." And there they are, appearing on a real-time strategy-style map. Oh, I thought this was a pure card game. Shows what I know...

0:20 My tutor goes over the basic tasks ... movement and attacking with a simple right-click. Now "it's time you summoned your very own army." I have a set of seven Blue Frost and Red Fire cards at the bottom of the screen, each representing summonable creatures or spells, I'm told. Each card needs Orbs and Power to cast, which I gain from special captured locations on the map. Interesting mix of cards and real-time strategy, here.

0:24 I summon some Frost Archers, as instructed, and they slowly wear down a huge Minotaur Shaman that's guarding an Orb monument. Man, this battle is taking forever ... shouldn't it be apparent who's going to win by now? On the other hand, I like that the pace is a bit slower than that of StarCraft, which I can't quite manage to keep up with.

0:27 I try out my Eruption spell on a nearby enemy encampment, as instructed. The card's text explains that "A heavy explosion deals 250 damage to enemies in a 10m radius around its target, up to 720 in total. Knocks back small units. Immediately reusable." All I know is that it causes a big boom.

0:29 That "immediately reusable" of the eruption card is important, because I need to use five of them in rapid succession to take out all the guard and the tower they're guarding. Now I'm summoning some more archers and foot soldiers in anticipation of storming a set of enemy archers that are set up atop a protective wall.

0:32 A computer-provided Earthquake weakens the walls (and the archers), then I send another eruption to knock the archers off. I'm surprised I even have an Eruption to use, but it seems my cards all regenerate after a short time. After that, the remaining enemies are easy pickings for my army of archers and Northguards.

0:36 I build a new wall on the rubble of the enemy wall I just created. Wouldn't it have been easier just to use the existing wall? No time to wonder about that ... a Minotaur Healer and a few archers are attacking! They're no match for my walled archers, who are aided by two huge Cannon Towers I've set up behind them.

0:41 I'm supposed to used my new dragon-like Fire Stalkers to take out some enemy Fire Towers "from a safe distance." Instead, the Fire Stalkers decide to walk right up to the towers to attack at short range, getting decimated in the process. By the time I call them back to a safe distance, they're dead. That was odd.

0:43 My replacement Fire Stalkers manage to take out the towers with a nice, long range firebombing attack. I'm not sure what I did differently, but I'm perfectly willing to blame myself instead of the game. I really, really suck at this RTS stuff.

0:46 I'm on my own now, battling through a few skirmishes to take some new Orbs and Power Towers. Each one gives me a new base from which to spawn new characters, allowing me to advance to my final goal. BTW, while I like how the game provides a tiny arrow pointing to my next objective, a mini-map would be nice to get a better idea of where things are on the battlefield.

0:49 A massive battle with a "Master Healer" finishes things out. I'm liking my newest units, which can generate Earthquake attacks practically at will. The interface makes it pretty easy to select specific units while making others hang back. Then again, it is a simple tutorial, so I don't know how it'll hold up in a real battle...

0:50 "Congratulations. You have defeated the enemy champion. This concludes our training exercise. You now know what it truly means to be a Skylord." Is it like the true meaning of Christmas?

0:52 I got upgrades to a few of my cards for my trouble. I can look over my battle stats too -- apparently I spent "720 Power" on spells, if you cared. I also unlocked a storybook that apparently explains the mythos of this world. "For ages, giants, the mighty and terrible sons of the earth, had reigned in terror." There's 14 more pages of crappy writing like this, with more to unlock. No thanks.

0:54 Puttering around in the menu a bit. I can buy new virtual cards with "BF points." Apparently my copy of the game came with 3000 of the suckers. That's nice, since I can't see spending real money on virtual cards.

0:55 The virtual booster opens up with a familiar ripping sound. Shrine of Greed ... Frost Sorceress ... another Fire Stalker ... Nasty Surprise. They all have nice art and way too much explanatory text. Where's the newbie summary for these cards?

0:57 Puttering around in the deck-builder now. I have quite a decent selection of cards in all four colors to start out with. Makes me wish I had the time to look them all over and figure out how to best use them.

0:59 I can jump into an open "scenario" with other players online or start my own. With one minute left in the hour, both options seem a little ridiculous.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes.


Why? If I had a few friends playing and the infinite free time I had when I was younger, I could see getting insanely caught up in this. As it stands, I'll probably tinker with a deck and play a scenario or two before moving on to the next shiny thing.

This column is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.



Want to know more about Games for Lunch? Check out the FAQ here.



For more Games for Lunch, visit the official GfL blog.