Str: Astral Tournament [by Apus Software]

When I first got Astral Tournament, I played it for 3 days straight.  I could not get enough of the game.  I was playing late into the night and getting up exhausted when I had to go to work.  I know that is common place for many of you, but for me, I hold a very strict schedule with games that I need to review.  If I did not, I'd never get anything done.  The rest of this game's story isn't so good though.  By the end of the second day I was starting to see an un-nerving trend.  I wasn't as in control of the game as I thought I was.  By the end of the third day I'd determined that whether or not I won was determined by the cards I was dealt at the beginning of the game.  Since this is a card game, that thought was as literal as figurative.

Astral Tournament puts you in the place of a mage as you attempt to take on another mage in a special card game.  You have a series of cards that you can choose from that are preset as they are dealt to you at the beginning of the game.  As the game progresses, you increase in 5 different areas, Fire, Water, Earth, Death, and Air each turn.  Once you have a high enough number of these elements, you can choose a from the cards you have and put them in play.  For example, if you had 5 Water points, you could play any water card that required less than 5 points (the game refers to this as summoning creatures).  Each creature you summon has an attack ability and a number of hit points.  There are 5 slots into which you can summon creatures and 5 slots parallel to those that have the other mage's creatures.  The intent of the game is to kill the other mage by summoning creatures that destroy his creatures and then destroy him.  Some creatures attack at higher levels or have more hit points than others, making them better offensive or defensive creatures.  Each attack you make on a slot where there is no defending creature will directly affect the other mage's hit points.  In addition, there are spells that will affect either your creatures, your enemies creatures, or your enemy himself. 

The game is wonderfully set up with graphics that are well enough done for what is being presented.  Though the game may seem complex, and honestly it can be to think about it all, the game play is very easy to pick up.  You'll find yourself glued to the screen as you play through the tournament attempting to destroy different mages, advance through leagues and become an Archmage.  And then...if you are like me...you'll start to get incredibly frustrated.  When you start any level you have specific creatures and spells available to you.  The number doesn't ever increase, but of course you can summon more powerful creatures as your points for any one category increases.  The problem is that if you have available to you a bad crop of creatures and spells no matter what you do, you will lose.  This was a very frustrating idea to me, and I feel that instead of randomly selecting my creatures and spells, the game should just give everyone access to everything.  Doing so would even up the sides and take away the feeling that you have no control over winning or losing the game.

With all the frustrations I had, I actually uninstalled the game, which is something I rarely ever do.  However, recently, Apus Software had added an online game play portion of the game with a high-score ranking table.  I decided to give it a try to see if they had fixed some of the frustrations I'd had with the game.  Unfortunately it didn't take long to see that the problems that had driven me to uninstall the game were still there.  In the game I played, my opponent had at his command a spell that would attack all of my creatures.  I had a similar spell, but mine required more points to use than his, so by the time I had enough points to use mine (the second to last play of the game) he'd already hit me 3 times with his spell, destroying all of my creatures.  I liken to game to SF2.  Before championship edition was released, Street Fighter had a similar ailment.  Guile was invincible if played correctly due to the time it took to use his moves.  This problem was corrected and I hope Astral Tournament will correct its own issues by making all pieces available to every player on every game.  Isn't that strategy is supposed to go?  Every player with an equal chance to play? 

In any event, judging by the online crowd at the website, Astral Tournament already has a pretty good following.  If you are interested in this type of game, download the demo and give it a run.

Added: November 8th 2003
Reviewer: Russell Carroll
Score:
Hits: 1358
Language: english