Recent reviews by RonjaLin

Secret of the Magic Crystal(s)
Review by Protoss

What is Secret of the Magic Crystal(s)? It is a collection of four minigames with a bit of nonsensical storyline about you having to breed five magical horses. You get magical horses in the fifth generation and for each generation beyond the first you need to raise two horses of the previous generation. Luckily after your stable is fully upgraded, you can buy second generation horses.

This means that, unless I made a mistake, in total you need to fully train 1+2+4+8+16 = 31 horses for your first fifth-generation horse and then 1+2+4+8 = 15 horses for each fifth-generation horse (provided you fully upgraded your stables), for a total of 91 horses.

How do you train horses? Well, you do the same four minigames over and over. Luckily once you got the catch, which is after a few minutes, the minigames are not at all difficult, and you also have to do each one only once per horse. The game just remains repetitive until the end. that you can see after a total of around 17-20 hours of playtime if you force yourself through the repetitive minigames again and again. The whole money management aspect really does not matter much, it seems only tacked on to hide there is no substantial gameplay. Which it fails to do.


Because of its fantasy horse setting the game is seen as a troll game by a certain number of people and therefor often at sales gifted to other people. This trend has taken a somewhat recession after the introduction of the Steam Trade system allowing you to store games in your backpack. Yes, for those newcomers, there was a time where you could only activate a game or reject it, and that was the high time of this game as a troll gift, together with Bad Rats! This also will be the most likely reason why negative reviews will be rated down, unfortunately countering the whole intent of the review system.

- The graphics are nicely done, although not top-notch. They very much fit into the fantasy setting, and I really don't see where to complain other than them looking a bit old (but still good enough).
- The sound also fits nicely, it is not disturbing but also fits into the setting.
- Atmosphere and Story are for all real intents and purposes nonexistant.

My sincere apologies, at the end of this review, go to the developers who after almost three years still do a good job of at least community info and free patching. For example, when achievements stopped working this year (2013), they fixed it. Not liking the game mechanics doesn't mean I don't appreciate that bit of work! In fact, I was surprised to see it fixed when I recently checked the forums, since I simply stopped expecting developers to give anything about their game after a certain period of time which lies between one and two years.


Recommended: No, unless you want the achievements, as they are easily obtainable by grinding

Magic 2014 — Duels of the Planeswalkers
Review by Protoss

What is Magic 2014? Well, Magic 2014 is the collectible card game "Magic The Gathering" in its fourth iteration of the series "Duels of the Planeswalkers" (DotP), not to be confused with the Microprose game of the same name that also is known as "Shandalar".

Magic 2014 allows you to compete with a number of pre-built decks (as of writing this: 10 in the base game, 5 in the expansion and 2 in the deck pack) with 60 to 100 cards against other pre-built decks or in the campaign mode against so-called "encounters" that don't follow the Magic deckbuilding rules.

It would be too complicated to go into details of the complete Magic rules, but the basics should be explained here: When you build a deck, you can freely choose what cards you have in it, which include any number of basic lands, up to 4 of each other card of the same name, and up to 1 of each restricted card. In the computer game I review here, the game takes care already that you can't build an illegal deck unless you have less than 60 or more than 100 cards. The "more than 100 cards" rule does not apply in real-life magic but because of the influence of luck generally a deck is considered more efficient with less cards in it, unless it is specifically built to maintain a larger card base.

After you have built your deck you can play. In the computer game, instead you have the pre-built decks with unlockable cards. This means you can customize your deck to a degree but not as freely as you would in real life Magic. This is on one hand good to introduce you to the game, on the other hand it also limits your options.

When you start an actual game, usually both players (it works similarly in a game mode with more players) draw a hand of seven cards each. You can exchange that hand for another one with seven cards, then six etc. down to one. You will usually want to have a certain number of lands and other cards in your hand.

Lands are used as a mana source. Almost every spell in the game costs mana. There are five mana colors in Magic plus colorless mana. A card that requires colorless mana to be cast can be paid with any mana, while a card that requires a specific color must be cast with that color. In the first turn, you will usually play a land - you can play at most one per turn unless other effects allow you to play more - and maybe cast a spell. There are different kinds of spells:
Permanents are spells that go to the battlefield when cast. Those can be creatures, enchantments or artifacts. Creatures can attack the enemy, enchantments and artifacts have different effects that affect the gameplay. Usually a permanent can only be used by its controller, who normally is the one who cast the spell.
There are also instants and sorceries which are spells that can be cast to have effects on the gameplay, for example making a creature stronger or weaker until the end of a turn, or dealing damage.

In your main phases, you can play permanents and sorcerys, in your attack phases you can attack. If your opponent has the turn, he gets those benefits and you can block. Instants can be played at any time, even in the opponent's move. Two decks are even built partially around instants that prevent an enemy's spells from working.

Your objective is to defeat your opponent who starts with the same amount of life as you, usually 20. When you win with a deck you unlock a new card that you can use in it later.

Read the rest of the Review in the comments because of the artificial character limit by Steam!

The new decks are interesting, but you should decide for yourself if they are worth the money. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1356

For me it is since I will play them until everything is unlocked, thus getting several hours from it. However, I still find it expensive and would love it to be 50p off.

Warning! As always, do not buy the deck key since you can not optionally use it - it will be unlocked. So you rob yourself of the fun of unlocking the cards, leading to less value for more money.


As an addition to the previous recommendation, it must be noted that the both decks are really fun to play with different styles:
The white deck "Bounce and Boon" is based around you returning a lot of permanents on the battlefield back to your hand or otherwise have you receive the bonus for them entering the battlefield again and again and again. One of your creatures has a target opponent skip his next combat phase, stackable, when it enters the battlefield! There is also an enchantment that puts a +1/+1 counter on every creature whenever a creature enters the battlefield. And you have a lion creature with flash that can be played for 2 mana that has the ability "When this creature enters the battlefield, return target permanent to your hand." Yes, you usually can bounce him several times a turn...

The black-blue deck "Unfinished Business" is a reanimate deck that is based on grabbing creatures from graveyards or copying them. It is also fun to play, especially since there are (few!) cards that can have your opponent(s) discard their cards or throw them into the graveyard from the library, most notably the Extractor Demon that has two cards from the library of a target opponent going to the graveyard whenever a creature leaves the battlefield. You also have a creature that lets you discard a card whenever you want. Combine this with Exhume or even Reanimate to have a 9/9 Flying Trample Demon on turn 2 on the battlefield. The latter method would cost you 9 life, though.