While at DigitalLife ’07 I got a chance to take a closer look at Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 hybrid collectible card game (CCG) The Eye of Judgment and get a feel for how the game is played in both it’s online and offline modes.

At first glance, traditional CCG players may write off The Eye of Judgment as a watered down game based on the fact that there are only nine open squares on the “board” of the game. While that may be true, the game is played in such a way that within those nine squares, there’s a great deal of room for strategy. While much has been made of the integration between the PlayStation 3 Eye camera and the physical cards the game requires, a lot of people still aren’t aware of exactly how the game is played – fortunately, I’m here to cover that bit of information for those of you still trying to figure this all out.

The premise of the game is simple – the first player to control five of the nine squares on the playing surface wins the game. Gaining control of those five squares, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The Eye of Judgment ships with the game itself, the PlayStation 3 Eye camera, a playing mat divided into a 3×3 grid, one “starter deck” of 30 pre-set cards, one “booster pack” containing 8 randomly selected cards and 4 “Action” cards required to play the game. Additional cards can be purchased separately. While we’ll get into the specifics of each of those items in a bit, let’s talks about setting the game up for play.

In an offline game, setup is relatively simple – players simply place the included mat on a flat surface, arrange the PlayStation Eye camera and stand to match the on-screen grid to the marked grids on the mat and the game is ready to be played. In an online game, in addition to the camera setup (and obviously connecting to an opponent) players must scan the cards they plan on using into the game. This step takes away many of the cheating and technical issue problems that many would imagine a game mixing both video games and physical objects could create.

The Eye of Judgment being played offline

At the time I played the game, no decision was made as to whether or not  players would be able to save their decks for future use – something that could cause problems down the road should a player be missing the cards that their deck requires. From all the reports I’ve read since then, it appears that scanning the cards in before each match will be the only option, but thankfully the time required to do this is less than two minutes. While that sounds like a lot – and in a case where you wish to play multiple games, it certainly is – I was surprised to see just how well the camera was able to pick up and scan cards in. One of my biggest fears with Eye was that it would be a constant hassle trying to get the game to recognize what you were attempting to do – thankfully, at least when set up in the idea conditions, that isn’t the case. Once the scanning is done and the game mat properly oriented, you’re good to go.

Looking at the playing field on screen, you’ll notice that the playfield’s nine squares are double sided and broken down into five different elements – 2 each of the standard types (fire, wood, water and earth) with the center square being a special type known as Biolith – a sort of BioMechanical element. The idea here is to summon creatures that have an affinity for the element of the square they’re placed in. While that may seem plain enough, these squares are actually double-sided. You may have brought out a creature in a water square that thrives in that environment, but lying in wait on the other side of the square could be a fire based square – which would not only take your creature’s water-square bonuses away, but would also incur penalties for your creature being on an element  that it has a weakness against – and your opponent may just have a card that will flip that square over in hand.

A look at the on-screen playing field

So I think looking at that end of the game, you can see how that first look of simplicity could be a bit deceiving. But what about what happens on the surface of the playing field? Players compete by using their mana pool, which if memory serves me correctly is fed by the squares controlled and the creatures played on those squares, to play cards that either summon creatures (Used to control squares) or perform abilities (used to affect the game play surface or creatures). Card abilities and effects are targeted using the action cards included with the game.

As hinted at earlier, the creatures players summon are tied to a specific element type and will either gain bonuses or receive penalties based on that home element and the element of the square they are played on.  Unlike other CCG’s, each creature card has not only an attack and defense rank, but also lists the directions from which it can attack other creatures or defend itself. As a result, the direction a card is played in can be just as important as playing the card. In addition, the creature cards can have their positions changed (by paying a movement mana cost) in order to adapt to changes on the board.

A look at the in-game information for a creature card

As with other CCG’s, the non-creature cards can be used for a wide variety of purposes from enhancing the abilities of summoned creatures to removing cards from an opponents hand.

The cards themselves are quite varied, and with 110 different cards available at Eye’s release, the possible combinations should be enough to ensure that each game is a somewhat unique experience. It’s a case where while the game can be a little overwhelming at first, the game’s central concepts are simple enough to allow players to pick up the basics quickly and over time begin to form more concrete strategies.

Of course, there is a price to pay for such intricacies – all CCG’s require the purchasing of additional cards, and Eye is no different. As I mentioned in the introduction, in order to play competitively, players will find themselves needing to purchase additional cards.

The cards will be available in two flavors – the first being the standard “booster pack” type most CCG players are familiar with, and the other being pre-built theme decks based on one of the five elements.

The booster packs will be priced at $3.99 for eight cards, breaking down into five common cards, 2 uncommon cards and one rare or ultra-rare card. Ultra-rare cards will only be obtainable in these booster packs.

The theme decks, of which there will be five at launch, are priced at $14.99 each and will consist of a mix of 30 cards, including one card unique to each deck. These theme decks will also include another set of the 4 action cards used to play the game.

Earth Emperor Deck	Fire Crusader Deck	Biolith Scourge Deck	Water Barrage Deck	Wood Swarm Deck

The game will support both single and two player games, with multiplayer being available for either face-to-face or online play. One of the concerns I had prior to trying the game was just how card selection would be policed in online play – after all, what’s to keep your opponent from just choosing the card they need for any particular situation?

The answer is simple – in online play, the game itself will choose what cards the players draw. As mentioned earlier, this requires both players to scan their cards into the game prior to beginning a match.

As for the cost of the game itself, The Eye of Judgment will carry the somewhat higher than usual price of $69.99 when it releases on October 23rd, but again. that premium is due to the game including not just the game, but the mat, cards, and PlayStation Eye camera as well.

In closing, I have to say I’m intrigued by the game. It certainly was fun to play, and the old Magic: The Gathering player in me longs to play a card based strategy once again. The only thing that gives me pause with Eye, beyond the involved costs for someone with my history of card-purchasing addiction, is the pending release of Magic: The Gathering Online v3 – a game that could put just as much of a gleam in my eye as EoJ does.

Ultimately, the biggest compliment I can give Eye of Judgment is that despite my policy of generally only playing online games with people I know and the fact that few of my friends own a PlayStation 3 (and even less plan on buying EoJ), I’ve still reserved the game and plan on buying a good quantity of cards at launch. If you’re a fan of collectable card games and have been looking for something a little different, I’d definitely say you should give The Eye of Judgment a try. That said, I’m going to leave you now with a short video tutorial of the game to help you absorb everything you’ve just read.

The Eye of Judgment will be released on October 23rd, 2007 exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

• The Eye of Judgment – Official website
• The Eye of Judgment Tutorial Trailer – GameTrailers.com