Pagoda of Gaming

Oh joo bee spoiln me…

Moy Bstst frynd tolded my whart joo did lost noit

Ovcorse it corn!

Fon ond shunshin, thars enuf for everones

Yus it corn!

I No All teh gamez joo ploy, coz I ploy tehm 2

So here is is I guess, my verdict on the game. You already saw me go off on the game in a ranting fashion earlier in the week, and hand out a protip or two, but here’s my final, or really current, thoughts on the game.

Gameplay wise, it is deceptively deep. What looks like you basically controlling 5 out of nine fields is actually you and your opponent countering the shit out of each other whilst your brain is constantly trying to keep one step ahead, and your hands are clasped together praying to your idol of choice that your opponent fucks up big time. The concept of “Hidden Brilliance” is practiced well in the game, both for the good and the bad.

Graphically, it’s fucking pretty, especially in high definition. All the battle animations, 3D models and card art both cohere to a decent standard. Sound-wise, I love the over-the-top music and the way the dude announces in an ominous voice “MANA CHARGE!” at the beginning of each turn, but chances are, that after a while, you’ll turn off the sound completely to browse the net or watch some TV at the same time, as I have already done. NEXT!

It really is an online game. Single player involves playing an AI opponent at the dificulty of your choice, the equivalent of pressing “instant action” in an offline FPS. What it is really, is a deck testing tool. Seriously, It’s a way of getting someone else to play one of your decks for you, whilst you play with another of your decks. Hell you can even make 2 AI opponents fight eachother. There’s no story, or character progression because there are no characters, because there doesn’t need to be. This isn’t a Videogame that happens to have some CCG to it, it’s a CCG that happens to let a Videogame play it. And in that fashion, as it always is, the cards are the story. Your other modes before hitting the online tab are all other tools to help you along. The Deck Builder to let you register a deck for online play and build others for the AI to mess about with. A Gallery to let you gawk at the pretty high definition 3d models of the cards in action and an options tab to… well… set up your camera.

The gameplay is some weird hybrid of a Collectable Card Game, Chess, and a little bit of a Collectable Minature’s game, where you’re placing your cards strategically to, at the same time, get your 5 out of 9 places on the board and fucking with your opponent’s stuff to slow him down, or in some cases, simply piss them off. This could’ve easily been a CCG in itself, with no need of the expensive console or sensative camera. But the console does something that CCG’s couldn’t have done in the past, making it look really pretty and awesom, and letting not need a horde of rabid geek-friends to pay and play with you. Play against the AI or play against some other social recluse, half the world away. Though the psynergy of the two can be, sometimes, a chore. But you’ll do it anyway, because your a nerd and you love it.

Online modes, the mint-chocolate-chip of the game, currently come in the single flavour, but in two sizes of tub. It’s one-on-one with the standard rules of the game, and you can do it in ranked and in unranked. Win in rank and you get Honor, the more honor you have, the higher to the top of the online leader-boards are. Something I found out, without the game telling me, is if you go into the worldwide rankings, it keeps track of what I assume is the last game played (and won?) by the player your currently highlighting, and your one press of X away from viewing that game, and viewing it without all the awkward pauses you’ll usually encounter. So you can, right now, look up the best player in the world and see how he does it. Something that should, keep the top-spot in a quite mercurial state for a long time coming. And I just realised that my initial Simile of the paragraph has left me hungry for some ice-cream. Excuse me a moment…

Now I do have some problems with the game, though these are certainly not things that cannot be fixed later on, more like added or fixed, so think of this as more of a wishlist. I commend the game for not having any, certainly none I have noticed, “vanilla” creatures. Creatures that have no fancy twist to them. Each and every card is somewhat significantly different in essence than the next. However, I must say that the amount of cycles in the first set is a bit annoying considering there are only 100 cards in the first set. By “cycles” I mean that there is a single card mesh that has a unique-ish ability, is then copy and pasted so that the same card appears in each of the colours. This is quite present in the “Ninja” cycle. Considering that this is the first set, I guess it’s better than having a ton of Vanilla’s in your face all the time. Online is fine at the moment, though it can certainly be improved on, and I don’t just mean within the game. On the internet, the only place I’ve ben getting info on the game has been from a single Neo-Gaf thread and the US playstation forum, that’s full of people complaing that it’s so easy to forge a card. Click HERE for an example of what the benchmark should be in what I’m talking about. You’ve got daily articles, a forum populated by the majority of players on the net, previews of upcoming sets, coprehensive rules, online card database and MOAR!!! and yet, EOJ currently has none of these things. Online on the console could certainly be improved. The fact that you pick a “nation” to be a part of from the fictional universe of the game and yet that has little to do than placing you in an irrelevent sub-worldwide rankings. Get rid of that and rank actual real world countries plz, then I can maybe find some other players in my immediate area. And how hard would it be to get a proper profile of people instead of a match replay. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the replays, but I know nothing else about the best player in the world other than he’s basically playing a starter deck. Let me see what country the guy’s from, what deck he’s currently using (should he wish to make that public knowledge) and hell, since you’re selling a camera with the game, why not a picture of the dude’s choice. On the console’s side of the coin, it’s really just stupid easily fixable mistakes. Like when you want to play with someone on your friends list, you have to go out and host a room then invite your friend to join. In the time that that happens, any other faggot could have just wandered into your room and took his place. The thing is, there’s no excuse all this stuff shouldn’t be in the game at some point, so I guess we’ll see it when we see it. Finally I’d like to say that there’s a HUGE lack of writen data on the game, and the tutorials are all in video form, so many, like me will just skip over them. Not 5 minutes ago I just learned that the reason some creatures have “Incarnation” written on them means that they can be summoned simply by sacrificing a creature on the board with the same element. WHAT THE FUCK! I could’ve been sacrificing my shitty one mana creature for this 9 mana BEHEMOTH of a GOD!!! You people need to get a comprehensive rule book out there, that has the rules for absolutely every abilitly, attack grid and errata you have in the game so far, and I would do it soon too, because the longer you leave it the more of a chore it’s going to be. And honestly, I’ve seen these problems before, in another game made in japan, Yu-Gi-Oh. That’s right! All the problems (apart from the one’s directly referring to the console) that EoJ is having, Yu-Gi-Oh has also had. The only thing different here is that Konami spent time and money on the game to get all these things out there. Collectable Card Games need above all, above new sets of cards, constant refining in rules and connecting with their player base. And it is here and here alone where EoJ will have the possibility of failing. Not with the cheating and the online play instability that so many people have been bitching about. Think about why MTG is still around almost 15 years after it’s conseption, and that is the road that the Eye of Judgement should do it’s best to follow.

The one problem that is not really all good for improvement, though awesome for sony’s coffers, is that trading cards is going to be a bitch if you never meet with a physical person in your days of playing. Sure, there’s always E-Bay. Sell your spares and then use the money made to get the card you wanted in the first place. I suppose that’s the reason TCG wasn’t printed on the packs, since Trading is not as standard, but collecting sure as hell is. I suppose that thats the reason that there’s going to be a small amount of new cards per set, so it’s a little easier to get what you want, and limiting some of the mose powerful cards to one-per deck, and also limiting the deck size to 30 cards (not the industry and player favoured 60 cards) but don’t expect to see some dude online kicking your ass with a playset of the ultra-rarest phantom card in the set, not for a couple of months anyways.

Now that was some long paragraphs. Despite all those things in question, Eye of Judgement is an awesome game, in that it is a CCG first and an online strategy game second. Well deserving of the eight-point-whatever’s it’s been getting across the board. It’s ultimate judgement lies in the console it was made for, and whether it can keep on bridging the gap for the player and not become a nuicence. This was essentially what I bought my PS3 for this year, instead of waiting for MGS4 to drop, and it has certainly definied my purchase in a most amazing light.

Defined it in the way that I really, really want to get my poor old mitts on a booster box and lie in bed covered in cards, taking in that amazing new-card, freshly broken booster pack smell.

Though I would sleeve them first… for protection.

But I’m really too hungry for just one song

I woke up this morning with a sort of dread, filled by the thought that nothing remotely exciting would happen to day, like the most interesting thing would be me picking up some deck protectors for my EoJ cards and BANG! News! Actual gaming news coming out of every wazoo imaginable.

IGN got their mitts on what seems to be (buy actually isn’t) the full song list for the initial release of Rock Band. 45 songs of almost complete tollerance, with the exception of Fall Out Boy faggotry. They have all the songs apart from the songs you “unock”, which I would assume would be the independant artists section, full of songs you “buy” with money made during the single player carrer mode. You know what I mean. Check it out HERE. I’ll post up the full list when the FULL list is available. And again I say, where the fuck is my Linkin Park/Lost Prophets/Electric Six.

On the Guitar Hero front, looks like the new owners of the franchise have launched their myspace like stat tracker glorified friends list of a site. Toppest rocker at the moment is a guy called Kov with something like 27 million points, on the 360 version. Check it out HERE. Rock Band will also have a similar site, but will probably be a bit better since it should be designed by Harmonix. I can also say that I haven’t played the GH3 demo yet, it was taking too long to download, though I have left my 360 on over the weekend to finish the download. Impressions next week.

Last bit of news is a proper preview and some actual in game footage for Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Check out the 1up preview HERE and the ingame footage, featured in this week’s 1upShow, HERE. From what I’ve seen so far, it should be a good follow up to what I consider to be one of the 360’s finest games.

Finally, on Demo’s for the weekend, it seems that the Crysis demo is going to hit… well… now. Click THIS HANDY LINK to get your PC tested to see if you can run the damn thing. Then CLICK HERE for the fileplanet link. The other demo that just came out of nowhere, is the Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command for the PSP. I was like whaaaat?. There’s no excuse to not download it, it’s only like… 6MB???? that can’t be right. Click HERE for demo download page.

I’ve got an 8meg connection to myself for the next couple of days, so I’ve got a ton of dowloads happening including 3 seasons of the 4400. But I guess I’ll end up playing WoW anyways and trolling the few EoJ forums out there. My big EoJ post should be written this afternoon. But first I have to go and mooch for some money… Enjoy a random video:

Are you ready, Steve?