The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I have no idea what to write about, so let’s look at the ol’ list of Blog Post Topics and see what the oldest one on there is.
Duel of the Planeswalkers 2012?
Alright.

Also known as Magic Roster Update 2012, this sequel to Duel of the Planeswalkers is… well, it’s okay. It certainly gives you access to more interesting decks right off the bat, like a super-annoying Vampire deck and a Metalcraft White Equipment deck. Instead of feeling like you’re playing with the most basic starter decks, like the first game, it feels like, instead, you’re playing with really solid preconstructs. Personally, I do feel like that’s an improvement, though it does make the game feel more unbalanced than the first. Some decks just seem to have little to no chance against others. Since I tend to like to just play my favorite deck and want to rake people over the coals if I’m playing against an AI opponent, that leads to unfortunate fights where my deck is just really, really ill-suited to the opposing deck. I could switch to another, but you get bonuses for sticking with one deck in the form of unlockable cards, so it makes you want to stay with just one.

Once again, you can’t actually build decks in the game, but in general, the customization is less stupid. In the first one, you couldn’t remove cards that were in the base deck, which was dumb, as many cards in the base deck were just obviously filler until you unlocked the better cards, and that made sure you always had a deck larger than 60 cards, which really sends the wrong message to new players. In this one, you’re basically building a sideboard of sorts for that deck, and can remove or add cards from the total collection of deck + sideboard however you want.

To be honest, though, this game didn’t keep my interest much at all when I got it. I don’t know if I was just in one of my Magic downswings or what, but I just didn’t want to keep at it and push through when my choice of deck seemed to have no hope. I was also very disappointed it didn’t have a 2-Headed-Giant campaign like last time. While I’m sure almost nobody used that feature, I thought it was awesome, and found it very fun when I played it with friends. It’s a missed opportunity, and part of the reason I bought it was because I assumed it would be there. I’m also sad that you unlock new game puzzles during the little campaign, instead of it being a separate mode. I enjoyed just playing through all those puzzles last time around. It was the first thing I did.

If you didn’t buy the first one, this is the one to buy. It’s inoffensive, and you pretty well know what you’re paying for. I just couldn’t get into it.