THE EYE OF JUDGMENT
Playstation 3, 2007

We’ve had card games based on video games (World of Warcraft) and video games based on card games (Magic: Duel of the Planeswalkers), but The Eye of Judgment is the first game to completely merge the two. It’s a fully-fleshed out CCG – booster packs, rarities, and everything. But with a Playstation 3, you can also scan your cards in with the Playstation Eye camera, and watch the creatures fight out on-screen.

I’ve had some time to play around with The Eye of Judgment now, so here’s my full review.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX
With the base set of The Eye of Judgment, you get the game software, the Playstation Eye, a cloth mat for the game and a stand that holds the camera at just the right angle. You also get one starter deck of 30 cards, and one booster deck of 8 cards.
Everything you need to play the game is here (except for the PS3), which is convenient – I think the game would be a more difficult sell if they were selling the Eye and the CCG separately. As it stands, a lot of people will at least be willing to give it a try, I think.
The obvious downside is that the game only comes with enough cards for one player (and barely enough for that). Do you want to rip into the game and take on your friends? You’ve got two options – divide your 38 cards so that each of you has 19 (the game won’t know the difference) or hunt down another $15 booster pack. Considering that playing against another person is a great way to enjoy the game, I find this a little short-sighted.

THE CCG
The core of The Eye of Judgment is the collectible card game. It’s backed by Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, and Sony, so there’s definitely some big money going into making it good. And it really is quite enjoyable, with a huge depth of strategy.

The game is all about area control. There’s no avatar of the player, no life points to be worn away. A player wins when, at the end of any turn, they control five of the nine fields on the board. That’s it. Weak creatures or strong ones, you just need to get five of them down and keep them alive.

Creatures are obviously the heart of the game. Each one has a diagram showing where it can attack, where it can counterattack if attacked, and where its blind side is – where it takes extra damage if attacked. Position and direction are very important in the game, and even a weak creature can be devastating if placed where an opponent can’t effectively react to it. Also, when a creature is played on an element that matches their color, they gain +2 life – a crucial bonus that seems to favor playing multi-colored decks.

Besides creatures, event cards allow you to change the elements of the battlefield, rotate an enemy, gain extra mana, or do other interesting tricks. Generally, these are very powerful. For example, Beguiling Fog costs 0 mana, and lets you rotate a creature any direction you want. Rotate a strong warrior backwards, and you can render him unable to attack while exposing his vulnerable back. However, you have to remember that events aren’t creatures, and creatures are what win you the game. Balance is key.

I’ve found the CCG aspect extremely enjoyable. Positioning requires a lot of strategy, and you can often make up for a hand of bad cards by playing them well.

THE VIDEO GAME
As a video game, Eye of Judgment is a bit lackluster – it’s obviously just a part of the CCG. There’s no single-player campaign, and no way to earn virtual cards or such without actually buying cards. You can fight the computer (with a pretty good AI), but just one-off matches, good for testing a deck. The game is really designed to be played with other people, and it emphasizes that with a good 2-player and online mode.

I’ve done one online game thus far, and it was a real treat. Laying down cards and knowing that they’re appearing in front of someone across the country is great. The game is easy to set up and quick to find an opponent, although it may be difficult to judge just how capable your foe is. Still, if you treat every loss as a learning experience, you’re in for infinite hours of fun.

The game includes a few other neat tweaks, too. It comes with a deck builder program, which is convenient, but also essential for online play, since you have to register your deck before you can play online with it. I believe you can also have the computer play with a deck you’ve made, which might be good for deck testing purposes. I don’t think there’s a CPU vs. CPU mode, but that’s not a huge loss.

There’s also the Judgment mode, which is what was shown in a lot of early videos. It’s stupid. You lay out one or more creatures, and they appear on top of their cards. Press a button and the game tells you who is stronger. That’s it. However, that’s not to say Judgment is a total loss. It’s really cool to hold a card in your hand and watch a fortress erupt from it. You can tilt it around to look at different sides of the creature, pull it closer or further away, and the PS3 will keep track of it all. It’s really quite amazing.

You can do something similar in the information mode. You can load up your cards and learn what they mean, get the story behind them and a snippet of flavor text. It even shows you on a map where the creature or power comes from. This is really cool, although it seems wasted on a game with no single-player aspect. Still, backstory is always appreciated.

DO I NEED A PLAYSTATION 3?
Technically, no, you don’t. The game is completely playable just with the cards and a 3x3 play area. The PS3 makes the game very smooth, though, by automating all of the automatic decisions. You don’t need to worry about whether or not your character is in counterattack position, or if he has Dodge or Protection – the game will take care of it. (Although you should keep all that in mind if you want to play well!) However, there’s nothing special added by the PS3 – no minigames, no super-random effects – everything is on the card.

If you want to play without a PS3, you’re going to need a lot of counters. Damage to creatures is permanent, so you’ll need to keep track of their life, which can change depending on what element they’re played on. Tokens to keep track of your mana, too. And speaking of elements, you’ll need to mark the elemental nature of every space on the field – including the opposite side, since the element of a field can be flipped with the right card. Overall, though, it should make a pretty smooth game, even without the PS3.

The CCG is optimized for a video game, though. There are no ‘interrupt’ cards, no way to mess with an opponent on their turn. There are no standing effects – a maximum of nine cards will be on the field at any one time. (And that means that someone is about to win.) This gives it a somewhat simple ‘my turn, your turn’ kind of play style, but I don’t think that detracts from it. Rather, it forces you to play well and think ahead instead of trying to catch your opponent by surprise. Personally, I like it.

OVERALL
Eye of Judgment is a great CCG, and the PS3 aspect adds a lot to the game. It’s difficult to give it a full recommendation, because it’s very expensive – at least $100 if you want to pick up a few boosters to be competitive, and that’s assuming you’ve already got the PS3. Still, it’s a good value for the money. The PS3 is more than just a gimmick – I feel that it really helps enhance the gameplay.

If you have a friend with a PS3, convince two or three of your buds to chip in to buy the Eye. I think you’ll enjoy the game.

EXTRA NOTE: CHEATING
One particular hoopla about this game is the possibility of using fake cards. It’s as simple as finding a picture of a card online, and printing it out to use in online games. However, I don’t think it’s a huge problem.
First of all, this isn’t a new problem. I’m sure people have been copying Magic cards and playing with them since the game came out. If you really want to avoid cheaters online, you can use message boards to find honest players, and play with them online.
Second, even cheaters have to play by the rules. You can only have 3 of a card in your deck, and some cards have even further limits on their use. Mana is hard to come by, and even the most common cards are useful. It’s not like people are editing their cards to increase their stats – it’s the same card you could pull from a booster…they just didn’t pull it from a booster.

I have to agree with you about the cheaters. You could have all the rare cards and phantom cards in the world but you still need to know how to use them and most of them take lots of mana. I played someone who had hudge rare and ultr-rare creatures but most of the time he was discarding them or he would play one and then I would be able to play two medium size creatures by the time he could get his mana up again. Cheaters do not matter in this tgame if you play smart.

Er, cheaters? A cheater is somebody who violates the rules of the game. Someone using a proxy card isn't cheating anymore than deciding to use a different marker for a Monopoly piece would be. The game doesn't change.

(Nice review though!)

I think by definition, they're 'cheating the system'. But eh, as seen above, I don't care.

And as a note on how common cards can be great, I think 'Beguiling Fog' is the best dang card in the game. Rotate a creature any direction for 0 mana - it's like free mana if you want to rotate one of your own powerful creatures, or a huge tax on the opponent if you turn one of their guys the wrong way!

Oh, that reminds me, my PSN or gamertag or whatever it is is 'bfiggins'. Bring it on!

I have one more thing to add to my review, too.
To use a Magic term, there's no 'colors' in Eye of Judgment. I mean, every card belongs to an element, but the elements just give you bonuses - they don't dictate your deck. It all comes from the same mana pool. Another example of limited-useful cards is UFS, where your cards have to share a resource symbol with your character.

Why is this good? Because it sucks to open a booster and draw a bunch of cards you're never gonna use. Back in my Magic days, I played White and Green, a little Red, never touched Black and Blue. So roughly 40% of the cards I owned were absolutely worthless. In Eye of Judgment, every card you own is potentially useful. Want to throw an expensive fire creature into your water-heavy deck? Go ahead. It really makes for a more satisfying game play experience. I think the EoJ boosters are slightly more expensive than other games ($3.99 MSRP for 8 cards, I believe), but I think you'll get more value out of a booster.

Great review! Spot on, and nicely covered.

Just a small correction: There is a CPU vs. CPU mode, and it can be quite entertaining watching the two computer players battle if you up the AI ratings and give them some of the unlocked pre-con decks.

I appreciate the correction! I had meant to investigate the matter myself.

It's a nice feature that you can have the computer play with your deck. My friends who play UFS are always doing quick matches to test their decks against each other, so EoJ helps to automate that if friends aren't available.

I don't mind the use of proxy cards, but how do you know that an online player isn't stacking their deck? I haven't played yet but I don't see why a cheater wouldn't just always use the cards they need at that time.

I believe the console handles the shuffling -- it tells you which card you draw instead of the other way around.