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Why Robin Makes Batman Better Sure I’ve got a retail copy of Halo 3, but I’ve already finished that fight and the multiplayer co-op, that can wait for a bit. The thing that made me squeal a bit in excitement was opening up a box to find an early build of Eye of Judgement complete with the new camera, stand, playing field and two packs of cards.
Not only can I not wait to play around some more with this game (remember, I do have “skills”), but I’m even more excited about totally blowing my son’s mind when he sees it the first time. He’s going to trip out.
The stand comes packed away in a smallish plastic bag and was fairly easy to put together, though it’s not the sort of thing you’re really going to way to take apart and put together over and over again. I think I would have preferred if they had made it collapsible instead of takeapartable.
The camera looks and feels pretty solid. It has a four microphone array. You can twist the lens, switching between a red and blue selection on the front of the lens. I’m not positive what this does but think it’s either for switching between auto and manual focus or, more likely, between distance and close-up focus. If you couldn’t tell, none of this stuff came with directions.
I can’t review the game until mid-October, so you’ll have to make do with what I’ve written about the game in the past, which is that I love it.
Eye of Judgment Online Impressions [Kotaku]
By: Brian Crecente
The next big thing in massively multiplayer online games might very well be the decidedly old school world of card games.
Online trading card games to be specific.
Since its August launch inside Everquest and Everquest II more than 111,000 matches of the Everquest-themed online trading card game Legends of Norrath have been played.
SOE president John Smedley told me in a recent interview that more than 30 percent of the MMOs’ players are currently playing the trading card game and that they’ve sold more than 5,000 virtual boxes of booster packs for about $100 a pop.
The console war isn’t the only bit of battle being waged at the Tokyo Game Show. There is also quite a fierce psychological battle being fought and the foot soldiers in the war for the hearts and minds of gamers are those elegant, perpetually smiling booth models.
While on the surface they may resemble the booth babes of E3 and Leipzig, dig a little deeper and you discover something crafty and calculating. Not a booth babe really as much as a booth bot.
I first noticed this while playing Patapon. They didn’t just walk me to the game and explain how to play, they hung around and enthusiastically watched me play. We’re talking clapping, laughing, even a bit of praise.
Eye of Judgment may end up sucking up a lot of space at your house once you get it, but it sure does solve a whole lot of the problems with Online Trading Card Games.
The problem it solves, at least for me, is finding someone who can play a trading card game with me when I want to, where I want to without sacrificing the satisfaction of holding honest to god cards in your hands.
That sounds like a minor point, the fact that you get real cards, but it isn’t. For people like me, for a lot of people I bet, the joy of card games are the cards. Once you get rid of those and replace them with digital images and online stats you might as well be playing an elaborate game of bullshit. And don’t tell me that you can’t cheat in online trading card games, that doesn’t matter, because you can’t fondle your cards either.
I need to hold the cards in my hand when I play. Tap them on the desk as I think over strategy.
The Eye of Judgment set up over in the Sony booth is pretty big, there are six tables set up, two of which are set up for playing head-to-head online and the rest are designed to be played side-by-side on a single machine. At one end of the area was a large glass display case with a selection of some of the retails card packs and boxes. I hate to say this, because of all of the required equipment and space, but I’m really looking forward to this game.
As I promised yesterday, here are some more shots of The Eye of Judgement press kit. Not shown in the following gallery is the table mat on which cards are placed and the EyeToy stand (included so that the tiny camera may stare in silent contemplation and malevolence at our puny human lives. Oh, and at the table mat).
Sadly, the review discs only work in a review PS3, so I won’t be playing it anytime soon. Which is no big deal, as I had a ball of a time with it at SCEA’s HQ in Sydney yesterday. Good times, good times.
All the Sony talk today is pure coincidence, I swear.
But, you have to admit, the box in the picture above is about as sexy as press kits get. They do not cheap out when it comes to packaging review code. The Eye of Judgement is no exception.
I’ll pull it apart tomorrow and take some more snaps of the new EyeToy, the playing cards and the board. Until then…
Note that this is not what the retail box will look like.
Sony’s invited me to take a look at a ‘review’ build of Eye of Judgement, the Magic: The Gathering-inspired card game for the PS3.
I’m not sure what I’ll be able to talk about immediately afterwards, but I wanted you to know that I’ll be heading their way on Monday 17.
If there’s anything you’d be interested in hearing about, drop in a comment and I’ll take it to heart… and notepad.
