August Reviews: Strategy Games
	Magic The Gathering Online Overall Rating: 8.7 Gameplay: 8 Tilt: 7 Sound: 8 Graphics: 7 Value: 8

Review: Many people will not buy this game as soon as you explain that they will need to spend money on cards that do not actually exist. These are the very same people with thousands upon thousands of cards sitting in a drawer in their room. Although, if you stop and think about it, is having a card physically printed on a half cent piece of cardboard really worth any more than having that same card online? The answer is no.

The reason is simple. What makes a card worth anything at all is it's rarity. It's not the ink or the cardboard it's printed on. How much a card is valued is directly proportional to how bad somebody wants it. So why would a physical card be worth any more than an online card. Well, if you check online auction sites you'll realize that the E-Cards are just as valuable and sometimes more so than the real thing. Personally, I'd rather give up the half cent piece of cardboard for the ease of use of the online version.

If you like Magic the card game, you'll love the online game. Now don't get me wrong, it's just as big of a money pit as it ever was. But, the much larger pool of competition and trading partners plus the fact that you can access any of this twenty four hours a day is very valuable indeed. After all, how many of us really purchase cards simply to collect them? In the end, it's all about the competition.

That said, the sound and graphics of the game are mediocre at best. Not that you'll really notice. You can see the exact wording of any card simply by hovering your mouse over it or you can go into your collection and view the card in it's full artful glory, foil and all. Plus, you can set it to show you every card currently available whether you own it or not. The same can be said about your deck editor. A dream deck can be created without actually owning any of the cards in said deck and then saved. It will then highlight in blue any cards in that deck you do not own so you can plan as to which cards you really need to be trading for. This means you can plan the perfect deck then set out on your quest to attain the cards needed to play it.

The game takes care of all the decisions for you. No more arguing over rules, stacking decks, life totals mysteriously growing, or "forgetting" whether or not you drew this turn. It's all settled and makes for a much faster paced game. You don't even have to shuffle between games! How great is that?

In the end the game is the same money wasting, hopelessly addictive, competitive game that it's always been without all the rubbish that led to arguments, slow games, and tedious deck building that physical cards and human error bring to the table. A must buy for anyone who truly considers themselves a "Magic Player".
 

Cheats:

Nope Sorry (unless u want to hack it j/k)