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Hearthstone. AKA Damn you Gus...
After all the podcasts where Gus talked about Hearthstone, I finally decided to try it... Bad idea.
Not that it's a bad game. Actually, it's the opposite: It's really good! But that's also the problem. Since the game is fun and the matches are relatively short, it's easy to fall into the trap of "just one more" until you chain enough of the "one more"s until late into the night.
I never played Magic but I was always interested when watching others play - I just didn't have the money for that kind of game. That's where Hearthstone "fixed" that problem by making the game free. That left me with no excuse to not try it and to get sucked in.
It's a good game and the early progression is pretty well paced as you unlock more of the basic cards for each of the nine classes. Sure, you can buy card packs to enhance your deck, but the game doesn't punish you too hard for sticking to the free-to-play system and earning your extra card packs.
And they didn't cheapen the experience by using the standard "you're out of energy - buy more!" trick of most free-to-play games. They're actually quite content to let you play through the night unimpeded. I suspect that's less about being "nice" and more about giving you every opportunity to want to buy more cards.
All in all, I'm glad I picked it up. I've probably logged about 15 hours or so playing on the couch at night while watching TV with my wife (when I wasn't working instead) and I'll definitely keep playing as long as they keep the game fun. Hook up with me on Battle.net (my name there is PizzaBrandon) if you play and we can play some matches!
Not that it's a bad game. Actually, it's the opposite: It's really good! But that's also the problem. Since the game is fun and the matches are relatively short, it's easy to fall into the trap of "just one more" until you chain enough of the "one more"s until late into the night.
I never played Magic but I was always interested when watching others play - I just didn't have the money for that kind of game. That's where Hearthstone "fixed" that problem by making the game free. That left me with no excuse to not try it and to get sucked in.
It's a good game and the early progression is pretty well paced as you unlock more of the basic cards for each of the nine classes. Sure, you can buy card packs to enhance your deck, but the game doesn't punish you too hard for sticking to the free-to-play system and earning your extra card packs.
And they didn't cheapen the experience by using the standard "you're out of energy - buy more!" trick of most free-to-play games. They're actually quite content to let you play through the night unimpeded. I suspect that's less about being "nice" and more about giving you every opportunity to want to buy more cards.
All in all, I'm glad I picked it up. I've probably logged about 15 hours or so playing on the couch at night while watching TV with my wife (when I wasn't working instead) and I'll definitely keep playing as long as they keep the game fun. Hook up with me on Battle.net (my name there is PizzaBrandon) if you play and we can play some matches!