Held back by lack of ambition
I played Magic The Gathering (MTG Board-game) When I was a kid, just once. lol
And strangly got stuck on my mind since, but as a kid it was far too complicated for me to grasp and all of these rules, but I still collected some cards and stuff. But never realy got into it. So that I finaly got to realy play this game(the first one) was just awsome :). It was so much simpler then if you would play it IRL. Waaay to much to keep track on, and far to slow paced.
Now, On Magic The Gathering 2012 (I just call it 2012), they improve on certain things that made the first game somewhat annoying.
First off, the decks. In the first one, I think you needed to win 4 matches to get 1 new deck. Here you get pretty much all 10decks on just 11-12matches. Which Is nice, much less fuzz to get the decks. Theirs a new deck pretty much every match if you skip the challenges. You dont need to do them, and their is not much point to do them either, since if you win. You dont unlock any new cards for your current/using deck. Which moves me to the next point, The unlocking of new cards are also much simpler. Like in the first one its around 0/16 new cards you have to unlock, but you often get 2 or 3. Particularly in the beginning which usaly go like this. 1/16- 4/16- 6/16-8/16. So thankfully, you dont need to win 16 times to get all cards, more like 8-10 instead. The customaziation is still pretty low, I know some people complained about the first one you wherent able to put a deck together on your own, well you cant that here either. But totaly if you got 16/16 on a deck you have about 84cards, and you can remove cards until you hit 60(minimum card size). So you can do a little bit, but not much.
Campaign/story, First off. 2012 Has a kick ass intro!. Its such a shame they dont show/display anymore story, cause the intro realy made me intrested in the characters and story. And well it was just awsome! and good voice acted also. I realy wish they had turned the entire campaign into a story telling mode. But, nope :(. I want more!!. lol
I must say the intro realy suprised me, I expected it to be very cliche and well just a standard apocalypse/descrution story or what to call it. But Im not gona give away anymore, point was anyway the intro was awesome!.
Further about the campaign, its shorter then MGT, unless you count the challenges. Just 11-12 opononents or so. Not a bad thing realy, since it offers more modes instead. Like Archenemy. Which you unlock after a few won matches. or you could play it off campagin with a freind or online. Archenemy is you +2 computers/or humans vs one main enemy computer. No player can be the arch enemy sadly. And its actualy suprisingly hard. Every round the archenemy automaticly sets scheme into motion that will either boost him significantly or destroy you utterly. Even such cards as "destroy all permaments" which will destroy all your creatures. Luckily It can only destroy 1 chosen target of the 3. Naturaly it was always choose the strongest one creature wise. And he can also for example take over all your creatures for a turn and use them against you. Well like you can ges, This mode can be quite frustrating realy. But can also be a lot of fun. Cause sometimes you will be left alone vs the archenemy who has pretty much everything on his side and yet you might be able to win. Its incredible rewarding if that happends, as equaly not rewarding as you fail. lol. Which goes for most games realy I ges:).
Also Have revenge mode In the campaign, which is well just like the campaign realy except your oponents seem to have a full deck and play much more vicious and tougher. They can also be extremely hard to defeat, even on easy. First campagin is luckily not that hard, but arch enemy and revenge can be quite tough. Again all On easiest setting.
Further + and - thingies
Much shorter loading times.. Woohoo!. That certainly annoyed me about the first game, the load times where extremely long and its just a frickin board game!?. wth?.
Awsome New high level cards (Creatures/monsters), with for example 11/11, 12/12 etc. They spiced up the games ultimate creatures and even with some new cool abilities like indestructible. (ye you read right).
The targeting is just messed up tho, often When in Archenemy, and if you want to look at a card that he has(archenemy). You are gonna struggle, lol. Its so ridiculous hard sometimes to zoom in and view the cards you want too. Particularly In archenemy mode. Its silly, Cause this in the first one wasent much of a prob. Your card view with the right stick just went the direction you wanted it too. Here you might go up and it goes left or right or who knows, down even.
The game move much faster, the first one was very slow paced. It took to long with the timer and if you where playing with a freind it took ages. Cause your freind have to press Y everytime if your freinds oponent (in 2vs2) played. for example. Here thankfully, it dosent matter who presses Y to continue, and game move automaticly much faster forward if you cant play anything at all. Short said, much less waiting. (sadly this isent so with archenemy tho, unless you play alone with 2 comps).
The game dosent go far in anykind of way tho, so its pretty much as the first game, except with new cards and a few new modes.
But if your a MGT fan or just like good bord games. I certainly recommend it. Their is certainly a lot of strategic fun in this game, if you like that sort of thing.