LAGWAR | GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

Since I first got into trading card games, I always wanted to see my cards come to life and see how they would carry out their attacks. Granted most of the major TCGs have games online that mimic the card game with no animation or have animation but don’t let you choose your decks.

Some of you may be asking why I am bringing up TCGs during the time when MMOs control most of my life. I have found an answer to my hopes, an MMO that uses animated cards and lets you customize your own deck.

It’s called Wizard 101

In the game you are a Wizard-in-training, running around advancing in your studies to become a full Wizard. While training you are also saving Wizard City from the evil that has plagued it, thanks to Malistaire Drake the professor of death magic who turned against the city.

The way character creation works is that when you create your character you are given a quiz to determine your school of magic, which is easily staged to get what you want. After that is done you choose your gender, hair color and then you can change the color of your robes. The sad thing is, is the fact that everyone starts out with the same style of robes. The robes are different colors by class, or if you customized the colors. Later on you can choose a second magic school.

Throughout the game you can get various item drops off of monsters, or bosses. Or buy them from some vendors and choose dye options for them. Changing your characters look from everyone else.

Naming your character is a bit unique, to say the least. Seeing as the game is designed for young’ns and in order to protect them you must choose your name. There are three sliders, one for first and the last two combine to make your last name. For example: I am Morgrim Iceheart, on the sliders it was Morgrim Ice Heart.

The combat in this game is turned based, much like a card game is. You run up and touch the enemies that are wandering around to start the battle. When the battle starts a giant “Battle area” forms – or a ring – with four spots on each side, one for you and the monster you tagged and the others for other players and monsters. Players can join within your combat freely, and a monster usually comes in with them. So you can either be fighting alone or someone could jump in either accidental or purposefully.

So there you are standing around the circle with what I like to call “The magic triangle” in between you. Everyone has thirty seconds to select his or her spell card from his or her hand. The triangle rotates clockwise going to each person as they perform their move. If you were to summon a creature it would appear in the middle of the triangle and attack who you targeted – Monsters usually summon themselves.

Even though you keep summoning the same cards over and over again at early levels, you still are curious to see what the animation will be. Instead of your summons only having one attack animation they have multiple, making it feel just a tad more immersive.

So now that you’re done slinging your enchantments and summons – the battles over. You notice that your health and mana are low. There are two ways you can go about fixing each. One way is for you to go back into a “safe zone” and stand there while your health regenerates a bit every second. Or you can run around collecting wisps, small red and blue wisps. The red wisps usually regenerate your health a few hundred per one you find and they’re pretty common. Mana wisps on the other hand are difficult to find, seeing as people are always snagging them, and they only replenish 2 out of high twenties or thirties (low leveled).

Now you’re full on mana and health and yet you don’t feel like going out and questing or grinding on monsters, there are other things to do. They have an area that resembles a carnival where you can go to play various mini-games. The mini-games are like free games that you find online; simple game play concept that gets increasingly hard to near impossible as the games progress over what seems to be an infinite of levels.

There are reasons to partake in these mini-games besides having your name posted on the high score list for the entire realm to see. When you get a “Low” score on the game you receive a money reward a bit higher at “Medium” you receive more money hand some mana. Finally you receive money, mana, and a third item when you reach a “High” score level, but seeing as I am not skilled enough in flash games I do not know what that third reward is.

Now that all of that is said and done and the games typical features are out of the way it is time to talk about their bad and plain annoying features.

Seeing as the game is for children there are a lot of restrictions involved. You cannot personally choose your name you need to use the sliders, this was already stated above. Next, the chat system consists of phrases they have deemed appropriate that you can choose from lists, from hellos to goodbyes and battle commands. Although this is not the only way to talk, there is the ability to type out what you want to say (if you’re 13 and older) and they block certain words. I have tried to talk to people via text yet I cannot seem to get it to work. I’ve attempted to type out something and hit enter but no words appear over my head and if anyone else types something all I see is “…” which gets annoying quickly.

There is also the issue with the graphics being a bit too “cartoony” and the fact how there doesn’t seem to be any direct contact while battling.

Let me start out with the graphics, they’re much like WoW’s graphics and yet they seem to be a bit worse. Everything is bright and neon and kid friendly. The monsters that should strike fear into the hearts of many just simply look like something on the back of your cereal box.

There is no direct contact whilst battling, unless with a spell. If a monster with a sword was attacking they would just stand in the middle of the magic triangle and slash and you’ll take damage. You summon an imp with a bow and they just float up and sing a song and the person takes damage from their notes of pain. It’s a bit high on the unrealistic scale but it is made for kids.

In the end it’s like other free online MMO’s positioned towards kids. They’re interesting while at the same time you wonder why you’re playing them while you could be playing a more advanced game, but not with cards of course. Also like most “Free” online MMO’s there is the option to upgrade your account for the small fee of $7 a month, to unlock more content to continue your adventures as a student in Wizard City.

-Wrewdinge