Review by: Brian Rowe

While a collectible card game (CCG) blended with real-time strategy sounds like prime fodder for an afternoon cartoon, perhaps starring a spiky-haired kid learning lessons of friendship, BattleForge has aspirations beyond siphoning your lunch money. It’s a fantasy battle of swords and sorcery with the careful foresight of Magic: The Gathering, the swift action of Starcraft, and a touch of MMO persistence. As you might imagine, mashing so many playmates together for the first time is bound to cause a little friction.

Your first choice is whether to use a premade deck of 20 cards, or start your own from scratch. You begin with enough BattleForge points to purchase six booster packs to add a few rare and uncommon cards to your initial collection, making a grand total of 160 cards, and probably with more than a few duplicates. To see all 200 cards from the current Twilight collection, you can buy more points ($2.50 per booster) or try to sell your castoffs in the auction house.

Speaking as a CCG veteran of 14 years, deck-building is the strategic backbone of any duel. Skilled players know that true power lies in the ability to create combos and a deck that works in unison from top to bottom, and not in the power of individual cards. A card like Soulshatter, which deals 850 damage to friends and foes alike, would normally be a questionable choice. Combined with Surge of Light, which heals 1000 damage to friendly targets, you can have your own medieval demolitions squad. Clever combinations are rampant in BattleForge, but putting them into action can be a bit tricky.

Cards come in four, color-coded varieties – Fire for direct attacks, Frost for defense, Nature for healing, and Shadow for unpredictable and self-destructive power. Much like a typical CCG, you must control resources on the field in the way of Power Wells and color specific Monuments to activate cards, but the similarities end there. Instead of using a limited hand of cards, you can use all 20 cards as long as you have the resources. Each card has a brief cooldown period, and some have limited charges, but others can call multiple units to the field.