Magic has arrived to XBox Live

And not a moment too soon. It's been a long time since I wished to get Magic: The Gathering onto XBox live. It seemed like a perfect game to be part of the Arcade collection. Should not require a huge download, could be sold for a pretty low price and, more importantly, could be one of the most addictive games on the platform. Like I am not already addicted to Magic: The Gathering... I've been playing the game, both physical and electronic for quite sometime now. ;-)

So how does Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers fare? Well... the developers of the title had their job made hard by the fact that there is already an excellent title out there for the PC. Magic Online has already been around for quite sometime and it's hard, if not impossible, not to draw comparisons between the two. So this review will make several of those. So let's get this thing going, usual like/dislike format:

Liked

• Magic! 'nough said! This is *the* card game you should try. The developers were able to get this working pretty well with the title. Nice to have the console do all the rule enforcing for you.
• Graphics are pretty nice (although this is also a downside, see below). Cards look pretty decent, liked the zoom in feature to read card details.

Did not like

• Animations can get old. There are controls to speed up some flow of the game but often I wish I could speed them up even more.
• Inspecting the cards on the board can be a challenge. The most immediate are easy to zoom in and read but if you want to read your opponent's cards on the board that becomes a bit harder, harder to select and zoom in.
  
• First and foremost, Magic is about building your own deck. The game mechanics is fun and there are a ton of nuances that make it a surprising and involving game but the majority of the fun is to get to build the "killer deck" the one you know by heart, the one you balance to do just exactly what you want it to do. And with that is also a lot of picking the right deck for the right opponent. This XBox version provides an extremely limited deck editing capability and that, more than anything else, makes what could be an excellent game into an ok game. The game limits your deck tweaking to adding or not cards you won in each match to your other, unchangeable cards. You end up, in essence, playing with canned decks. That's a disappointment. The PC version is superior in every way as far as deck editing is concerned presenting all the freedom to combine your cards in every way, shape or form. Strike one.
  
• Marketplace. In my perspective the greatest lost opportunity ever. Everyone that has ever played Magic knows that to build your perfect deck you buy more decks and combine the cards. XBox Marketplace could be a great platform to allow you to buy more decks (and make a nice profit in the process for the developer and MS). Nope. Not here, at least not for now...again, hope they add that soon. Another point in favor of the PC version I'm afraid. You can buy decks online, even the more recent editions, and integrate them into your collection. Strike two.
  
• Trading. Another pretty important part of the game. Trade your cards with others. Get the *exact ones* you want that way. Not a sniff of that on the XBox version, have my doubts it will ever get to be there. The PC version has even a parallel currency for that. Competition tickets. You can effectively get all the cards you want if you take the time to look for them. Strike three.

So what is the final verdict? It seems to me that this is a huge missed opportunity for much more. I still like the game (since I do love Magic: The Gathering) and I bought it in a heartbeat but I do think that if you're to play Magic you are much better off with the PC version. I sincerely hope this is a success for XBox live and that developers and MS start aiming a bit higher and adding the missing features. I will, for one, surely be willing to pay for them.

3 stars and a hope for more to come.