magic-the-gathering posts

Wizards of the Coast's popular collectible fantasy card game series Magic the Gathering has been adapted into a downloadable PC game, Duels of the Planeswalkers, (shown above) for some time now. Today Wizards of the Coast announced plans for a stand alone follow-up game, Duels of the PlanesWalkers 2012.

With a title that reminds some of a sports game franchise, this new title will be released for the PC, via Steam, and other platforms later this summer. Specific details have yet to be announced but the new game will feature "all new game modes, Planeswalker opponents, decks, puzzle challenges" and more.

[Via email press release]

The newest Magic: The Gathering Tactics trailer visits yet another one of the five elemental colors. This time, it is black: the color of death, despair, and hopelessness. Like one would expect, the creatures of black are either eldritch horrors or monstrosities brought forth by death-defying magic. Zombies, gigantic spiders, black knights, and massive winged demons are all creatures that swear their allegiance to a wielder of black mana. In other words, these are all the creatures you can summon in Tactics!

Download Magic: The Gathering Tactics Black Mana Trailer
Check out all Magic: The Gathering Tactics downloads

Magic: The Gathering is such an in-depth card game that many find it daunting to approach it. Five different colors, all the different color combinations, tons of different types of cards, and plenty of rare and useful cards to acquire. Naturally, those going into Magic: The Gathering Tactics will be a little confused if they haven't played the core game, which is where this trailer comes in. It details the creatures inherent to blue mana while showing that they share common themes: flying, magic, and/or water-based minions. There's not much else to it, although the graphics certainly look slick.

Download HD Magic: The Gathering Tactics 'Blue Mana' Trailer
Check out all Magic: The Gathering Tactics downloads

This week is a fairly slow one for new PC game releases. The only major new release planned is a downloadable game that's yet another adaptation of a collectible card game. In addition two games that were planned for release earlier this month, the action-RPG Venetica and the RTS-RPG expansion pack Spellforce 2: Faith In Destiny, are now scheduled to ship to stores this week.

Magic The Gathering Tactics - This downloadable free-to-play game from Sony Online is the latest adaptation of the fantasy-themed trading card RPG title from Wizards of the Coast. Instead of cards, players control 3D creatures in turn-based combat. Players can also purchase additional content for the game

Developer Sony Online will have a busy January. Next week its MMO DC Universe Online launches and a week later on January 18 its downloadable free-to-play game Magic: The Gathering - Tactics will be released for the PC platform (a PS3 version will be made available later this year).

As we have reported before this game, based on the classic collectible card game series, doesn't use cards are all. Players instead summon creatures and have them battle other in a full 3D turn-based strategy game. While the core game is free to play, players can purchase booster packs for more figures and spells along with new single player battles.

Steam's third phase of its current Treasure Hunt promotion and contest has now gone live. As with the first two parts of the contest, this third chapter is giving players a chance to complete four objectives inside of two days. Completing each objective gives the player another entry in the two-day content where 20 Steam users will be given their top five games on their Steam wish lists for free. The big prize comes at the end of the Treasure Hunt where someone will get 100 free games of their choice on Steam.

The objectives to complete for the next two days are:

Join an Official Group
Get Back in Business in Mafia II
Be a Devastator in Magic: The Gathering
Set a leaderboard score of at least 85,370 for 'Classic - Small Wonder' in Droplitz

Also for the next two days Mafia II's price goes down to $33.49, Magic - The Gathering can be bought for $4.99 and Droplitz can be yours for a mere $2.50.

Wizards of the Coast published a PC port of its collectible card game Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers via Steam last June and since then there have been two expansion packs and a number of new card decks released for the game. However, the team at Sony Online Entertainment's Denver offices have been working on a different Magic: The Gathering game for some time.

Announced over a year ago, Magic: The Gathering - Tactics is a full 3D turn-based strategy game that uses the Magic universe and creatures in full tactical combat. Big Download got Mark Tuttle, the head of SOE's Denver unit, to give us some more info on the game which is scheduled for release for both the PC and PS3 platforms sometime in the "holiday" time period.

Magic The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers has been available for the PC platform for some time. The virtual collectible card game from developer and publisher Wizards of the Coasts has also released two expansion packs and a number of card decks via Steam. Today the third expansion pack for the game has now been released on Steam's download service.

The $4.99 expansion pack adds three new playable decks to the game along with new unlockable cards for each of the previously released card decks. There's also some new challenges, achievements and a new single player campaign that unlocks the Master of Shadows deck.

The first day of September was very busy on the news side and it looks like tomorrow will be just as busy, if not more so. Brace yourself now:

• A second expansion pack for the PC port of Magic The Gathering Duels of the Planewalkers is now available via Steam.
• A new update for the beta of Counter-Strike Source is also available via Steam.
• Starting on Thursday and running through Labor Day you can download Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey from Games For Windows Live for just $3.75.
• You can try out the indie made MMO game Love for free starting on Friday and running through the weekend.
• Irrational Games' newest Irrational audio interview has Ken Levine chatting with comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis.
• Valve is holding a Midnight Riders/Left 4 Dead music video contest.
• It's not really PC news but you really should check out the iPhone/iPad Unreal Engine 3 tech demo Epic Citadel.

Comic-Con is in full swing now. Lots of A, B, and Z-grade celebs, lots of cosplay and lots of cool stuff to buy in the dealers room. How we wish E3 had a dealers room now. Darn it.

• Quick. Alert the media. Someone found out Half-Life 2 Episode 3 is still in development after three years.
• VoodooPC's founder says Microsoft killed a cross platform Xbox 360-PC multiplayer project that was 'under wraps". Um, you mean this "under wraps" game? Or maybe this one? Or this one?
• Speaking of Microsoft they have added World of Conflict: Complete Edition and Dawn of Discovery to the list of games available to purchase on Games For Windows Live's On Demand service.
• Steam has put the indie game Eufloria on sale for 50 percent off its normal price until July 29.
• Also Steam has put the Deck Collection DLC (22 items in total) for Magic The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers on sale for over 50 percent off.
• Jace Hall, former game developer turned Hollywood big shot, will be the master of ceremonies at Sony Online's Fan Faire in Las Vegas in early August.