Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds

by Atari

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007N3KIO
• Item Weight: 5 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: December 14, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,288 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Enter an epic battleground - an arena from the mythical world of Magic: The Gathering â?" Battlegrounds, where one-on-one fighting requires a menacing combination of strength and sorcery. Summon barbaric creatures. Hurl lightning-fast spells. Scorch the landscape with a blistering flurry of combat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It couldn't have been made simpler..., November 26, 2008

By 

Ryan Simons "Screen-watcher" (Santa Rosa, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds (CD-ROM)

...and I mean that in the worst way. I'm a fan of Magic the Gathering, so when I saw a new PC title with its name, I grabbed it instantly. I quickly realized why the description for this game is so vague, and the reason is two-fold.

First is that you shouldn't even call this game Magic the Gathering: Battleground, but "Magical Battles on the Ground" because so little of the card game exists in this PC title. There is no land, you just collect mana over time, about equal to your opponent. There are no attack phases, your creatures just slowly, automatically do their damage. There aren't any turns or phases whatsoever. You don't even collect cards, or at least not what I'd call cards, you just unlock different spells, which you cast not by drawing a card, but simply by choosing to by hitting the proper hot-key, once you get enough mana. But if it simply didn't follow the original game, Battlegrounds could still be a good game.

That's where Atari frankly missed the mark, making the second reason for vague product descriptions. There is no story, nor any useful tips for strategy, in what few cracks in the gameplay you could fit it. The learning curve rises not by improving the CPU's intelligence, or by increasing the complexity of gameplay, but only by giving the opponent better spells than you, consistently. As I may have mentioned, when you acquire a new spell or creature, you can load that into your "deck", which I would much rather call a hot-key set, because that's all it is. You get a short list of spells you can assign to hot-keys which you can cast repeatedly, granted you have sufficient mana, which you get by moving your character on your side of the field, picking up power-ups, which seems a little pointless since there are no obstacles, or anything else that has to do with your position, so they could just automatically give them to you, or insert something more interesting like a micro-game to grant said mana.

The animation isn't so hot, there isn't much variety of spells, and I don't think you can even make multi-color decks. I usually do a pretty good job of finding something positive to say, but for this game, I can't. I wouldn't recommend this game even if the price tag plummeted. But if you must pinch your pennies, or have a fetish for cheap games, I would recommend buying one of a slew of fantastic games on Amazon for under 15 bucks.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I actually liked it, September 2, 2009

By 

Leicester Dedlock (Ames, IA United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds (CD-ROM)

Some people love to trash this game and their arguments mostly boil down to "it's not like the card game". I agree that the game is only marginally related to the card game, but if you ignore the admittedly normal expectation that it will be like the card game, you are left with a very enjoyable real-time strategy game.

But it's not perfect. I'd like to start off with what I don't like. The first thing is that this is a console port. I originally played this game on the Xbox at a friend's house, and that is definitely the better version. On the PC, the keyboard controls take quite a while to get used, especially those for spellcasting, and remain fairly awkward even with practice. The game is definitely made for the Xbox controller. To cast spells, you first have to press J (for sorceries), K (for creatures), or L (for enchantments). Then you press U (left) and O (right) to flip through the pages (up to 3) of spells in that category, and then you cast the spell by pressing the corresponding key (J, K,or L), or press I to cancel. Awkward. In addition, the graphics corresponding to these are not J, K, L, etc. but the letters on the Xbox controller (!!). So, I'm supposed to hit X? No! You can remap the keys, but it doesn't fix much. Being able to hotkey all 10 spells (you can choose 10 out of 14) to whatever you like without having to deal with page-flipping would have been very nice.

Another problem with the controls is this: your mana increases naturally, but you can boost your mana by a sliver by pressing I. Doing so is not necessary for every battle, but to optimize your chances, basically you need to spend the match constantly mashing the I key. This can get tiring, although you can avoid doing it constantly and still manage to beat most stages, even though you worsen your odds by doing so.

The rest of the problems are pretty minor. When there are a lot of creatures on the screen, I do get minor lag, but my computer is pretty old. Also, you don't have all your spells available in most stages, which makes it easier to learn but less fun. I would have preferred a separate tutorial mode instead of integrating tutorials into the main quest.

Anyway, the game goes like this. You begin with 20 life and no mana. In most stages, like the card game, your goal is to reduce the life of your opponent to 0 before they do the same to you. A few stages in Quest mode have other goals (e.g. have 40 life before your opponent does, defeat the opponent before they control 5 creatures, et cetera). The arena is divided into two sections, with yourself on the left and your opponent on the right. You are allowed to enter the opponent's section, but you cannot cast spells there and you will gradually take damage if you stay there for too long. Periodically, a large mana shard will appear in your half of the arena (and theirs...you can even grab theirs if you're quick enough). This shard gives you 1 full "ball" of mana and increases your maximum mana by 1 (up to 12). When a creature is defeated, they will drop a number of small mana shards (more if the creature is bigger). These increase your mana but not your maximum mana. Also, you mana increase by itself gradually and you can make it increase faster by pressing I repeatedly.

Each spell requires a certain amount of mana to cast, the spells are all available from the beginning of the match (no cards), and there is no limit to how many times you can cast a particular spell. Sorceries, as in the card game, are one-shot spells. Enchantments stay in play and have some lasting effect. Unlike the card game, you can only have two enchantments in play at the same time. They can be the same enchantment (some effects are cumulative) or different ones. Creatures are summoned where your character stands, and you can only have 5 creatures at once. Like the card game, they have power (for attack) and toughness (for defense). They will head toward your opponent to attack them, but they will stop to attack any nearby enemy creature your opponent has cast. After battling a creature or attacking your opponent, if the creature is still alive, it will respawn back at their original location. Unlike the card game, damage is permanent (e.g. their toughness is not refreshed). Additionally, some creatures have special attributes which work similar to their card game equivalents (e.g. flying, first strike, trample, regeneration).

Also, you can attack creatures and characters directly, but your attack is pretty weak and it opens yourself up for attack. For a small amount of mana, you can shield, reducing damage to yourself by half, rounded down.

In quest mode, you play through 6 chapters of stages (1 per color and then 1 with a custom deck of up to two colors). Each "color" has its own set of spells. For the first 5 chapters, you begin with one spell and gain one new spell after beating each stage. Usually, you are required to cast your newest spell sometime during the next stage. Also, the first chapter has a few spell-less stages at the beginning which are used to teach a few of the basics (attacking, shielding, mana shards). Quest mode has two difficulties: Easy and Normal.

Quest mode is what I usually play, and it is very fun. Each stage is very unique and it definitely feels like the game gives you a bit of variety. However, as stated before, not having all spells available during every stage is a minus in my book. Also, quite a few of the stages seem to push the player into some pre-designed cookie-cutter strategy. Yet, overall, it is fun developing and implementing strategies, and you can spend a lot of time tweaking your strategies. Some are obvious, others less so. It is especially exciting when you develop a strategy that is even more efficient than a cookie-cutter strategy the game (and game hints) try to push you into. The difficulty level, even on Normal, is a little low overall, but there's definitely a few challenging stages. Some require serious thinking in terms of developing a strategy (e.g. To Hell and Back). Others are difficult because they require quick reflexes and precise implementation of a strategy (e.g. Turtle Defense).

Arcade mode is similar. You can choose and switch between colors. For each color, you begin with a pretty weak duelist (with just a few spells). After defeating a number of (equally weak) duelists, you open up a more powerful duelist in that color. This continues for a few tiers. Eventually, you can unlock the most powerful duelists. Compared to Quest mode, Arcade mode seems to feel a little more generic, but unlike Quest mode, this mode doesn't seem to push you into any certain strategy. I prefer Quest mode, but Arcade mode is still a fun distraction and increases the lasting value of the game.

Vs. mode is what you would expect. A simple battle between two different players. Before the match, you choose your color(s) and spells (up to 10). I've only played this mode on the Xbox, but I have a feeling the keyboard is going to be a bit crowded, so I'd make sure to hook up at least one decent controller. This mode probably sees a lot less play among players on this version than on the Xbox version.

Overall, the game provides quite a bit of variety and strategic depth. The lasting value is fairly high due to the variety in the Quest mode stages, and due to the number of strategies that can be discovered. The A.I. is pretty predictable overall within a given stage, but if you go through an entire mode, Arcade or Quest, you will see quite a variety of strategies from the computer. Until you learn each stage, this will keep you on your toes for a while.

If you have an Xbox, get that version instead, but I still think this game is worth buying despite its flaws.

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Game, January 15, 2011

By 

G. Castle - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds (CD-ROM)

Well, it isn't the same as the card game, but it is still fun and the same concept. I see it as a more realist version of how magic battles would be. It is real time and you can only have 10 spells at a time in your spell book. You gather mana orbs as they appear which give 1 mana and raise your max mana. Then you use the mana to cast spells. Creatures will automatically go for the opponent unless another creature gets in the way. There are enchantments which give boosts to all your creatures, some creatures that stand back and just give abilities (but can still battle), and also sorceries. Sorceries tend to target closest of your creatures (for positives) or enemies (for negatives).
So yah, it isn't the same as the card game but it is still a fun pc game and still uses enough of the elements of "Magic: the Gathering" to be counted as a magic game.