I love card games. Eight years ago, I sat in my biology teacher's class during lunch playing a new game called Magic the Gathering. After that, it was Star Wars and more recently my brother got me into Yu-Gi-Oh. I've stuffed many dollars into the coffers of my collectible trading card masters. That's why I jumped at the chance to review Konami's digitalization of Upper Deck's Vs gaming system, the Marvel Trading Card Game (MTCG).
You can't talk about a trading card video game without mentioning the cards. Vs is an Upper Deck card system (for the Marvel and DC universes) that allows players to battle using comic book legends like Spiderman, Wolverine and Captain America. Three card types exist in the game: characters, plot twists and equipment. Characters are your army. They deal damage and help whittle your opponent's life points from 50 to 0. Equipment helps pump your character's powers and abilities while plot twists keep things interesting by allowing payers to counter their opponent's moves. To activate these cards, players must use resource points they receive each turn. I liked the tutorials MTCG has in place. Unlike other trading card video games, like Magic the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh, they're detailed and explain things well, however, going through tutorials alone won't help you win. To win, you have to lose. Tutorials will teach players the game's basics, but learning to strategically use your cards against the enemy is completely different. One additional feature this game could benefit from is an undo system. Because there's so much going on in the screen, it's easy to play the wrong card at the wrong time, and making mistakes like that could cost players a game.
Players choose from two story arcs at MTCG's start, hero or villain, each with a unique starter deck. I chose villain. Here is the first problem I found with MTCG…your starter deck sucks. There are powerful cards in it, but many of these cards require a lot of resources. While saving up to play Venom, the computer already had several weaker characters eating away my life points. Great! Players can get better cards by purchasing booster packs with points earned from completing missions. With each story chapter you unlock, more booster packs become available. Aside from storyline mode, players can also participate in challenge modes pitting them against several multiplayer AIs. Each AI has a unique deck and play style. You start with three opponents to choose from, but playing through story mode can unlock more.
Between missions, players can tweak their decks with MTCG's deck editor. Konami did a great job here. A variety of filter settings keep the visible cards manageable and sorting options help organize what you're viewing. I like the multiple deck support too. Four save slots are available for custom decks and each save slot can be named, so players can easily identify them. Card games often require building specific decks to counter certain cards. Allowing multiple deck configurations helps game setup a lot. With all the deck editor's great features, I'll forgive the long load times when browsing the card library (it takes a while for card text and images to appear).
There is an online community for MTCG, but it's small. The most players I've ever seen online are about twelve, and the least is one. It's probably because multiplayer in MTCG is a confusing mess. Before gaming, players must create an account on Konami's website. Through this account, players trade cards and participate in forum chats. Konami's sign-up forms are online, so MTCG exits into the PSP's web browser. It would have been better for sign-up to be integrated into MTCG itself because the website doesn't always load correctly. Card purchases and trading also requires logging onto Konami's bothersome website. Playing MTCG online requires gamers to buy cards from Konami too. Single player and multiplayer card libraries are kept separate, so whatever you buy in the single player campaign doesn't carry over (and vice versa). I believe this is ridiculous, but it's been done before with Magic the Gathering Online. Paying for content, like an expansion for Oblivion, is one thing, but paying for digital cards is another. Usually, card games are fads. They release, you build a deck, it gets old and you stop playing. Investing in digital cards is bad. Purchasing paper cards at least guarantees you can teach others how to play in the future, but if you're playing a trading card video game, who are you going to play with offline? Your opponent would need a copy of MTCG and a PSP. Konami could have fixed this with one of two things: 1) allowing two players to compete on one PSP or 2) allowing players to import their physical cards into the game (like Yu-Gi-Oh does).
Bottom Line:
Konami's Marvel Trading Card Game is for die-hard fans only. If you don't play the paper version of Marvel's game, this UMD is not for you. And if you do, make sure you know other people who are also buying MTCG. While not perfect, Konami's implementation of Upper Deck's Vs system isn't bad. Many of the game's issues are inevitable because the card game is so complex, and any card game turned video game would suffer the same problem. But that's why games like this should stay in card form and not be digitized on consoles or portable systems.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
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| 6.0 |
Posted: 2007-04-21 06:44:24 PST