Preview: BattleForge
Having just stepped in from EA's Spring Preview in New York, my head is chock full of game candy. One delicious morsel is BattleForge, an RTS for the PC that takes aim at both Magic: The Gathering and, to some extent, Warcraft and MMOs of its ilk.
At first glance, BattleForge looks like a card battler, and although you'll manage and improve a deck of cards divided into four colors of magic, the action on the screen plays out RTS-style. In other words: fast and furious. And gorgeous - the environment and units are easily as well-styled as the toons from Eye of Judgement, for instance.
BattleForge does away with resource management, relying on a basic energy system: your energy is always replenishing, but will do so faster or slower depending on the amount of territory you control. Also gone is the rush to defend your home base, since BattleForge lets you deploy units near any of your controlled structures. Yet another RTS staple - the prolonged and ultimately unmanageable campaign - is also improved; there's a 30 minute time limit to battles, but our EA rep said he'd only seen a few games move beyond the seven-minute mark.
You'll deploy the cards in your deck, which can be upgraded as you see fit, to summon troops and release attacks, but rather than build a huge discard pile your cards will have MMO-style cooldowns. Also borrowing from the MMO handbook is an auction house that lets you buy booster packs in-game for real money, or trade with other players. In that sense, BattleForge opens the door for real-money trade that's built into the game. Love it or hate it, at least there won't be any gold farmers to destabilize the in-game economy. Lastly, PvE and PvP battles both exist, rewarding you with gold, experience points, and the ability to upgrade your cards.
With a beta key in hand, I'm looking forward to forging some battles of my own - and thanks to the lovely folks at EA Phenomic, we may get some beta keys for our loyal GayGamer readers - keep an eye out!
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 11 February 2009
Other stuff like this: battleforge, card battles, ea phenomic, pc, rts
