Magic The Gathering 2012 XBLA – Review – Xbox 360

Crank up the nerdy-ness cause Magic is at it again. Trying to build upon last year’s formula, Magic 2012 is like a real life duel – it has its ups and downs. You take control of your “Avatar” and duel against the different plains walkers in 3 separate campaigns. The decks and cards are all well detailed and play very well even having the sort of luck based element where a poor hand at the beginning of a match can seal your fate.

Story : To say there is a straightforward story in magic is kind of a lie. To sum it up easily enough there is a story; it is about a plains walker being released and kind of raising hell. And you and other plains walkers have to basically stop him. It’s such a meaningless part of the game that I am honestly unsure why it is even there. 5/10

Gameplay : If you have ever picked up a Magic deck this will feel very similar to real life, for those who haven’t, a nice tutorial helps you along, as well as in-game instructions as you play explaining what every card can do. The premise is pretty simple in whichever case; you and your opponent take turns drawing cards and playing either creatures or spells until one has done the required amount of damage to make the enemy’s life reach 0. Everything runs pretty smoothly most of the time – sometimes the computer stutters and doesn’t seem to know what he/she should do. In a new game mode you and two other computer/players can take on one. This makes for a very interesting and strategic duel. The out manned player has double the health and rarer cards as well they get the scheme deck which creates almost a rule per round for that player tipping it in their favour. With 3 separate campaigns and quite a few customizable options it is an improvement over 2011. There are some issues that I found though. I would have liked to see an option to mix decks in order to create your own to your own play style, and even better a way to bring cards from the real world into the game ( I have well over 1000 cards). Being quite a duellist myself a lot of what this game did was made me want to pick up my decks and have a real duel. That is more a small issue though a larger one occurs in the 3 – 1 matches when scheme cards are played; the game can get stuck on that card or worse I had it create a infinite loop where it copied a card that had haste than when that card dies a copy takes its place, therefore it kept attacking the same card which, in turn, attacked. But overall with so many options and a very rewarding and addicting duelling system, game play for me gets an 8/10.

Graphics/Audio : The opening cinematic is very beautiful and sets the graphical tone well. All the cards look like their real life counterparts. The table top is nice. There really is not too much to say in the graphics department. It’s pretty reasonable for a duelling game. They did try to implement a story which would have been nice to see in more cut scenes since it kind of just disappears after a little bit but overall the card and spell effects are nice to look at. 7/10.

The music is nice to listen to at first and so is the sound of cards or spells being played but after a while everything becomes repetitive. It would have been nice if there was a story just to hear some voice acting or anything to change it up a bit. But it remains loyal to a real life game of magic that is for sure. 7/10

Multiplayer: The multi-player is a huge step up, 4 shared or 4 over Xbox live makes for really fast pace and interesting duels. Lagging can be an issue since sometimes a card will be played and it will not appear to be played on your turn, etc. But overall if you can get some friends together to play, I say do it. 7.5/10

Overall : Magic 2012 is a vast improvement over its predecessor, offering more decks, a better campaign, more fluent duelling and a better array of multiplayer. If some of the little bugs were fixed or even more cards this would be a terrific game, but I personally would rather pick up my deck and duel. Hopefully if there is another one it will add a fully customizable deck option.
Overall Score: 7.5/10

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