I've been getting reinvolved in the beloved nerd pass-time of collectible card games lately. For Christmas I signed up for Magic Online, since I hadn't used my stack of real life cards in forever. It's pretty fun to be able to play whenever you want, even if you have to start over. And if you're willing to pay 30 cents for a picture of a dragon with some typing on it printed on a piece of cardboard, it's not that much of a stretch to pay 30 cents for a digital picture of a dragon that you can use to play online. Then today at Dollar Tree, where we normally get the kids some balloons or something cheap as we pass by, I saw a pile of Lord of the Rings boosters and had to get some. I only had a few starter decks and maybe 5 boosters from a few years ago, but I was willing to give it another try and write this DEFUNCT CCG REVIEW.
It's a "defunct CCG" because expansions have stopped, and Decipher, the company that made the game, are done with it, are shutting down servers for the online version this summer, and the website has tons of broken links to stuff like card lists and the rulebook.
THE GAME: Your deck consists of half "good guy" (Frodo and his many Hobbit, Dwarf, and Elf friends) and "bad guy" (anyone uglier than a dwarf) halves. The goal is just like the movie - get the Ring from the Shire to Mt. Doom, only this path is represented by 9 lands that you move your characters across. On your turn, you play cards to protect your Ring-bearer and try to move him further along the path. Your opponent responds with evil minions and events to try and kill the Ring-bearer. If you survive your turn, you switch places and you get to send minions to kill the other guy's Ring-bearer as they move. There are of course plenty of weapons, armor, and special effects to help both sides, but it's possible that you'll get stuck with a hand full of Hobbits or other good guy stuff when you need orcs. It seems you're more likely to win by killing your opponent rather than actually guiding your fellowship to the end.
EASE OF PLAY: From the cards I have, I can say it's fairly easy to learn how to play a starter deck, but my few boosters haven't added much to their effectiveness; if your rare card from a booster pack is an event or possession based around a character you don't have, you're S.O.L. on that one. The complete rule book was only around 20 pages vs the 169 of the Magic rulebook.
CONS: The card art is still frames from the movie, so some of the art looks blurry if it was from a scene with fast moving CG characters. A lot of the common cards just don't look that impressive.I haven't played it a lot so I don't know how tough it is build a really competitive deck.
WHY IT'S FUN: I'll give almost anything related to Lord of the Rings a chance since it is one of my favorite book series ever. There are multiple versions of each main character, like Frodo, Gandalf, Gimli, etc., of differing rarity, so it's easy to get several of your favorite characters to use in a deck. It's like you're totally switching games every time your turn ends and you switch from Ring-protecting to Hobbit slaughtering.Worth trying out if you can find some starter decks for cheap.
3 comments:
I played Magic for a bit of time but the game that REALLY got me was "Yu-Gi-Oh!". It honestly wasn't difficult and people, as in other players, made it more complicated then it had to be. Play a few games via emulation etc now and again but I sold off my Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic Cards, YEARS ago.
One of my friends was into the Star Wars game, too. That required one person to be light and another dark so meant you needed specifics to play with anyone... which limited options or required you to buy enough cards for both.
ALSO: If the game was even popular in the smallest form... you might be able to find some form of free or "alternative" server, somewhere.
A review of Star Wars CCG will be coming up, it is the one I have the largest collection of so I'm saving it for last. Lord of the Rings is also pretty easy to learn, although the phases have wierd names like fellowship, skirmish, and regroup, the fights are basically just comparing guys strength, adding bonuses from weapons and events (instants). However, when you're playing the good guys turn, any cards you play usually have the cost of adding "twilight tokens" which your opponent can use to play evil cards.
Yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh was intended for people 12 - 18 (give or take) so couldn't be that complicated.
Draw Phase
Standby Phase (Small phase for minor effects sometimes)
Main Phase (Do stuff here)
Battle Phase (Explains self and only required simple math)
Main Phase 2 (Do stuff here after battle)
End Phase (Turn Over)
HUZZAH! XD
But I couldn't get into Star Wars CCG cause of the Light vs Dark system that was NEEDED. I like being able to play anyone not only 1/2 or less. And the rules, that I remember, said you couldn't mix them within a deck or something... don't recall 100%.
We'll see what happens when ya post it, eh?
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