Magic: The Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia The game included 10 cards unique to it, generally utilizing random mechanics that would be difficult to implement in real-life card play. It includes cards from 6th edition, Alliances, and Tempest. It takes place in the town of Magic Heart, the surrounding areas of Murg, Camat Island, Lydar Forest, Yeluk, Tornell, and The Balance Tower. Magic: The Gathering is a Dreamcast game published and released by Sega in June 2001, though in Japan only. Players could summon creatures to the arena as well as attack the opposing wizard directly. The game was controlled with a trackball, and supported up to two players. White had healing and soldiers Blue countermagic and water creatures Black death and undead creatures Red fire and mountain creatures and Green elves and forest magic. Gameplay is a cross between real time combat and strategy, with characters representing one of the five colors. The arcade board used 3dfx components and included 600 MB of RAM. GamePro reported that Armageddon was shown to their editors behind the scenes at the 1997 ASI show in Las Vegas, but did not appear on the show floor.
Acclaim's Mountain View, California-based coin-op division went out of business shortly after creating the game, so it never went into full production. It is possible that as few as four machines were made. Magic: The Gathering: Armageddon is an extremely rare arcade game published by Acclaim in 1997, somewhat similar to BattleMage. Electronic Gaming Monthly 's reviewers found the game confusing and graphically unimpressive, and said it would appeal to fans of the card game only. Ĭritical response to the game were mostly negative, with reviewers criticizing that it bears no resemblance to the card game in either structure or spirit, and is unfairly difficult due to the AI opponent's ability to act instantly while human players are slowed by the complicated interface. In October 2018, the game's rights were acquired by Canadian production company Liquid Media Group along with other titles originally owned by Acclaim Entertainment.
Spectrum Holobyte filed a lawsuit after Acclaim published the PC version in January 1997, claiming Acclaim had violated an agreement the two companies made in November 1996 which established a release schedule for the game, with the two companies publishing it for different platforms. The game had a poor critical reception due to its unfair AI, unfriendly interface, and unbalanced gameplay. It is set on the continent of Corondor, where a planeswalker named Ravidel forces the most powerful mages to fight each other, so that he can eventually destroy them and conquer the land. In addition to the real time strategy game, BattleMage has a head-to-head mode. It was also in development for the Sega Saturn, but this version was cancelled in mid-1997. Magic: The Gathering: BattleMage is a real time strategy game published in January 1997 by Acclaim for both PCs and PlayStation. Meier left before development was complete to found Firaxis Games. The game is notable as being the last game the esteemed game designer Sid Meier ( Civilization, Railroad Tycoon) worked on while employed by MicroProse, though his involvement was short. Two expansion packs were published, Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers. Adventure game and role-playing game elements are present, including inventory, gold, towns, dungeons, random battles, and character progression in the form of new abilities and a higher life point total. The player must prevent any one color from gaining too much power, and defeat the planeswalker Arzakon, who has a deck of all five colors.
The game takes place in the plane of Shandalar, where the player must travel the land and fight random enemies to gain cards, and defeat five wizards representing the five colors. Named after the game itself, Magic: The Gathering was published by MicroProse in February 1997. Main article: Magic: The Gathering (1997 video game)