Magic Duels: Origins - Xbox One Review

Magic: The Gathering and I go back a long ways, so I leap at almost every chance to play a new iteration of the collectable card game whenever I can. Having played every one of the yearly iterations of Duels of the Planeswalkers, I held out hopes that Magic Duels: Origins would get things right this time. Unfortunately it is a case of one step forward and two steps back that makes this a middling release that failed to keep my attention.

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Magic 2015 - Garruk's Revenge Expansion - PC Review

Have you found yourself thinking “golly, I sure had a hearty helping of Magic the Gathering from this years Magic 2015 release on Steam, but I could sure go for a nice digestif to wash it all down?” Well Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast saw that longing look in your eye as they casually slide the dessert menu to you. On special tonight, a $5 expansion pack called Garruk’s Revenge. Promising 5 new campaign levels, dozens of new cards, and a new way of unlocking boosters, it is a mighty tempting offer. But does this offering put the cherry on top, or does it feel like a clown throwing a pie in your face?

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Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers + Garruk's Revenge - Xbox One Review

Magic: The Gathering is one of those hobbies of mine that dates back quite a few years. Most of our nights playing Dungeons & Dragons started (or ended) with some hands of Magic being played among us (when we were not playing rounds of Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye). I have started and stopped over the years, adding cards and selling some along the way. The fundamental game remains the same, despite some rules clarifications (goodbye Interrupts) and new mechanics (hello Planeswalkers). Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers is a mostly faithful recreation of the game that does several things right over prior years, but also stumbles in a few places as well.

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Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers - PC Review

My foray into Magic: The Gathering began in the late 90’s. Spotting the Portal starter set on sale behind the counter at a chain bookstore, I convinced a friend to split the cost with me. This first foray was brief, as my young self didn’t have the income to fuel a collectible card game addiction. In college, I had a set of friends that fell in quite deep, attending Friday night matches and release tournaments, but cost remained prohibitive. It was not until about a year ago where I really took the plunge, buying booster boxes along with my colleagues and our own dear Editor in Chief here. Spending more money than I care to admit, I loved the act of opening a booster, creating a deck, and then tweaking it after seeing how it fared against my colleagues. Though I have been clean of the physical cards for about a year, I have still picked up the various Magic: The Gathering releases on Steam to scratch the occasional itch.

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Carmageddon: Reincarnation - Preview

Vehicular combat is a genre that is not delved into that much these days. Sure, there are the "arcadey" racing games like Burnout or Flatout which entirely eschew weapons, or the odd kart racer, but they just fail scratch the same itch. There was a time when games like Twisted Metal, Vigilante 8, Interstate ‘76, and Carmageddon gave you that real thrill of being in a machine built for destruction. It would seem that Stainless Games - the original creator of Carmageddon - felt that same itch, and decided to take it upon themselves to fill that void.

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Magic 2014 - Duels of the Planeswalkers - PC & PS3 Review

I think by now it has been pretty well established that I am a huge fan of Magic: The Gathering. I have been playing the physical game since college - just shy of twenty years now. I have seen a lot of the PC versions of the game come about, such as the old RPG-style one from Microprose through various interactions of the Duels of the Planeswalkers series.

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