{"id":23859,"date":"2014-04-26T07:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=23859"},"modified":"2014-05-22T13:20:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T18:20:41","slug":"ios-review-do-flashy-graphics-save-this-behemoth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/23859-ios-review-do-flashy-graphics-save-this-behemoth\/","title":{"rendered":"iOS Review: Do Flashy Graphics Save This Behemoth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hearthstone_Logo\"Lok\u2019tar! Greetings, friends! Way back in the day I wrote a post on World of Warcraft<\/a>. I did a lot of raiding, and led the \u201cTee Shirt Ninjas\u201d Guild\u2019s Red Team on the Black Dragonflight realm for many years before handing it off, returning, and then leaving again. I played all of the original Warcrafts, Starcrafts, and currently I\u2019m smashing my way through the hardcore mode of Diablo 3.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s fairly safe to say I\u2019m familiar with just about every Blizzard Entertainment title (yeah, even Rock n\u2019 Roll Racing and Blackthorne). Because of this, I\u2019ve given in and had to try out Hearthstone<\/a>, a free trading card game for Mac, PC, and the iPad. Will it hold up for someone who plays a lot of Magic: The Gathering? Let\u2019s find out!<\/p>\n

\"Nope,<\/a>
Nope, this isn\u2019t the Necronomicon. Sadly, I\u2019d rather open that.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Put simply: No. No, it didn\u2019t exactly hold up. Well, the game is mediocre, but I\u2019m not sold on it. I played quite a few matches, and have yet to lose. The game is silly and easy. My current strategy of smashing the enemy hero, and letting them attack my minions seems to work out much better than it really should. I have a good feeling that its issue lies in how the game handles minion health.<\/p>\n

For example, I summon a creature that has 2 attack and 1 health. The enemy has a creature that is 4 attack and 2 health. I punch the hero, he retaliates by attacking my creature. Whoa, hold up. Re-evaluate those values. So, my 2\/1 hits his hero for 2 damage, and then his 4\/2 hits my 2\/1. In combat both creatures deal damage to each other, so they will both die. So my choices are this: Hit the hero (killing the hero wins the game), or hit the creature. If I hit the hero I get 2 points of damage on them, and then our creatures die during his turn. Or, I kill the creature, and my own this turn, and nothing happens in regards to them next turn. Well the obvious play is to attack the hero.<\/p>\n

\"Hearth2\"<\/a>
Oh look a 10\/10 creature, let me just ignore it and win. I swear, this game\u2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sure this sounds like a simple thing that would be erased over the course of the game, as more difficult mechanics and cards are added. Maybe. Honestly I haven\u2019t gotten THAT far into the game yet, but I did play a lot of player vs. player matches, and the strategy worked just fine. Summon things, hit the hero, and wipe their creatures out with spells that hit all creatures.<\/p>\n

I suppose the saving grace of this game is the presentation. Out of all the games I\u2019ve played recently, I think this one has the best user interface and overall feel to the game. From the constant voice over taunts from both players and AI alike, to the wonderful animated playing fields, Hearthstone does a fabulous job of drawing you in. And that\u2019s no surprise \u2013 it\u2019s a Blizzard game. In fact, I\u2019d be concerned if it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

So the issue of this sort of a card game vs. say, Magic: The Gathering, is that creatures do not regenerate their health after the turns end. In Magic, a creature with 4 attack, 6 health, is pretty annoying and hard to get rid of. In Hearthstone, it\u2019s a guarantee he will be removed. At some point you\u2019ll do a total of 6 damage, the threat of this large creature is really nullified and \u201cNerfed\u201d in my eyes.<\/p>\n

\"It\u2019s<\/a>
It\u2019s cards like this that win the games. Since you can\u2019t cast things in response.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Graphics:\u00a0\"Rating-Bar5\"<\/h2>\n

SO PRETTY. But sadly that doesn\u2019t make it a great game. The character artwork, the card portraits, even the user interface are all absolutely flawless. There wasn\u2019t a single thing I could give a good reason to change. Blizzard did a fantastic job on the art for Hearthstone.<\/p>\n

Gameplay:\"Rating-Bar2\"<\/h2>\n

As with all the Blizzard games as of late, someone clearly walked around with a Nerf bat, and beat the challenge out of everything. World Of Warcraft is currently suffering from the same problem. The game designers are stripping out half the games spells, because it was deemed \u201ctoo many buttons\u201d and that\u2019s \u201cconfusing and not fun\u201d. You know what\u2019s not fun? Mindlessly playing cards from my hand, because it rarely matters what I cast in what order. While the game has enough to keep me playing, I\u2019m not entirely pleased.<\/p>\n

Audio:\u00a0\"Rating-Bar5\"<\/h2>\n

As with all of Blizzard\u2019s games, they hire some top-notch voice actors. All of the voices are made of win and smothered in awesome sauce. I don\u2019t want to come off as a Blizzard fan boy, but they rarely, RARELY screw up this category.<\/p>\n

Innovation:\u00a0\"Rating-Bar2\"<\/h2>\n

Oh look, it\u2019s a card game. ANNND you made it super easy. ANNNNND it has a lot less strategy vs. other games in its genre. If you place your ear to the monitor you can hear me clapping really slowly.<\/p>\n

Overall:\u00a0\"Rating-Bar3\"<\/h2>\n

Ugh, my hopes were set very high for this title. I was super excited to have a game to play in bed before passing out for the evening that allowed me to still be social and communicate with my friends (it has full support for battle.net chat). What that turned into was my playing Hearthstone and getting 300 messages about when I\u2019m coming back to World Of Warcraft. If any of you read this blog, allow me to answer you all at once : I WOULDN\u2019T GO BACK TO WOW, IF BLIZZARD PAID ME IN HOT POCKETS AND GOLD COINS. While Hearthstone has a good draw to it, and yeah, it\u2019s fun, I think there are a lot of things it could have done better. I really wanted a fun, hard, challenging card game. Oh wait, it\u2019s Blizzard! What was I thinking expecting a challenge? Guess it\u2019s time to play more League of Legends<\/a> and get out of this bronze-tier baddie-box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lok\u2019tar! Greetings, friends! Way back in the day I wrote a post on World of Warcraft. I did a lot of raiding, and led the \u201cTee Shirt Ninjas\u201d Guild\u2019s Red Team on the Black Dragonflight realm for many years before handing it off, returning, and then leaving again. I played all of the original Warcrafts, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":23868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[932],"class_list":["post-23859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-app-review"],"yoast_head":"\niOS Review: Will Flashy Graphics Save This Behemoth?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"OWC Tony Reviews Hearthstone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/23859-ios-review-do-flashy-graphics-save-this-behemoth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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