Let us discuss...
The Forgotten CCGs.
First up is my favorite CCG ever. I still play this one today:
Decipher's Star Wars CCG. The force is strong with this game. Hitting the market in 1995 and going strong until 2001, this game was both glorious and incredibly advanced. It has a steep learning curve and quite frankly makes Magic look like checkers. That steep learning curve is a definite part of what limited some of the potential success of this great game, and during its in-print life, some rules-abuse issues ran a bit too rampant. Ultimately it saw a sour downfall due to internal issues with Decipher and Lucas Arts, coupled with a new high-bidder for the Star Wars license when Wizards of the Coast picked it up to publish their own Star Wars games (to limited success).
So badass.
This game was, and still is, so well-designed and advanced that there remains a large following for it to this date. www.starwarsccg.org is the home to the current state of this great card game, and for over the last decade the Player Committee, a highly-dedicated group of folks who love this game, have been continually breathing more life into Decipher's SWCCG, and have even be releasing "new cards" with a very creative process that allows them to not infringe on any copyright issues. There is still a very competitive atmosphere, and tournaments are abundant if you know where to look. Here at Curio, we run SWCCG tournaments about once a month, with a solid core of 6-10 players. There's even yearly Worlds tournaments with impressive prize purses that players travel to from all around the world.
This next game is based in part on my particular love for the theme, but it also expanded on the idea set by Decipher's SWCCG of creating an environment/battlefield with location-style cards to play your dudebros to and fight over:
In space, no one can hear your game die
Aliens Vs. Predator (versus Marines?) CCG. Supplied by a source of brilliant screenshots from the movies and beyond, this game gave players the awesome options of playing with and against one of three groups: the Colonial Marines, the Aliens, or the stoic, dominating Predator. If you were a fan of the movies and the lore, you, like me, probably loved the look of this game:
Probably the coolest card ever.
Unfortunately, unlike Decipher's SWCCG, this game wasn't as well-designed and there were a lot of game rules questions that were not well answered by the game itself, and things sorta ran amuck. It lasted a mere two years of publishing, and only two sets as well. There was a huge reservoir of untapped potential for lore and imagery to draw upon, and I like to think of this game as one that could have been amazing if the game's company was more learned and prominent in the field of CCGs. That being said, this game's cards will still always look really, really sweet:
Last up, EVE CCG:
Created around 2006 by CCP & White Wolf Publishing, this excellently-designed card game was based on the rich environment created by the digital game that is still played hugely to this day: EVE online. Ironically, basing a card game on a video game is not what led to this game's demise. There were some surprising internal issues that are yet to be fully understood that lead to this game's swift crash & burn in late 2009.
The concept was pretty awesome. You picked one of four factions to play as, set up your home world, played a bunch of really-sweet looking starships, supplemented your force with resource cards, went out and conquered territories, and ultimately won by taking a final all-in strike at your opponent's home world and beating out their force.
The cards looked beautiful, and drew upon a surprisingly rich pool of in-game screen shots, coupled with large amounts of very well-done concept art.
I still own thousands of EVE CCG cards. They're hard to want to get rid of, because every time I look at them I remember how much fun the game is. I even played EVE CCG in a huge tournament at Gencon 2007 and won over $500. Of all the games I have played, I would say EVE CCG is one of the most fun. Never played the online game, though! Heh.
So, what are some CCGs you loved that are no longer around? Do you still play any of them?
-CC
No comments:
Post a Comment