Eye of Judgment is an odd product from a business standpoint. It is clearly aimed at a very niche market. It requires not only an add-on accessory to play, but also additional purchases to have any longevity. It lacks any sort of meaningful single player experience. It shouldn’t sell. Someone at Sony has clearly lost their job over its release, right? Wrong, because not a single one of these problems matters if you are in the niche market it is pointed at. Eye of Judgment is an exceptional collectible card game that just happens to require a $499.99 system as a start up cost.

Eye of Judgment comes bundled with Sony’s new eye toy. Its functionality is very similar to the PS2 predecessor, with the addition of a microphone for the few of us who don’t have an extra Bluetooth headset lying around. Once the camera and the included stand and mat are set up, they will require adjustment. I wouldn’t call the card recognition picky, but it will take a few tries to get it right. I had to move a few light bulbs around in my hole of a basement to eliminate shadows. When it all works right, which is most of the time, the camera becomes transparent and it is time to get down to the serious business of playing cards.

I am a CCG veteran. I played and owned more Magic then I care to admit, loved Legend of the Five Rings and flirted with many others along the way. Eye of Judgment has many of the same features as Magic, which should come as no surprise as Wizards of the Coast helped produce it. The creatures have hit points and damage points, summoning costs and extra abilities. There are spells and direct damage and cards that mess with the land’s attributes or make an opponent lose mana. This part is all very familiar; what is different is how the game is won, and it makes for an altogether original experience.

The Eye of Judgment board is comprised of nine squares of varying colors. Victory is achieved by occupying five of the squares first. The point is not to kill the opponent or all of his creatures, it is only to occupy more areas before he does. It is also not nearly as simple as it sounds. Summoning a creature to the color square that it matches nets a hit point bonus and an occasional extra ability. On the other hand, summoning a creature to an area it doesn’t match has a different effect, sometimes good and sometimes bad. There are also colorless creatures (bioliths) that can only be summoned to a biolith square, until the summoning lock is broken, and so on and so forth. This is a game of position and planning, not throwing big monsters at one another and seeing which comes out ahead. That is still fun to do, of course, but not very productive.

Balance is an issue with any CCG. The common cards should be common, but not worthless and the rare cards should be powerful but difficult to use. Eye of Judgment excels here. Having success with the starter and booster that are packed in is quite possible, just not recommended. There will be an investment in cards required to keep the game going. On the other hand, simply having all the best cards is not a guarantee of success, something that many other games of this type fall prey to. Beating a rich braggart who owns five of everything simply with good strategy and common cards is difficult, but far from impossible, and feels really, really good.

Eye of Judgment’s failings have little to do with the game itself. The art on the cards and overall theme are lacking. It is a very generic ‘fantasy’ setting and Wizards of the Coast should have come up with much better. The game’s music is awful. I have not heard that much butt-rock since Guilty Gear, and at least that fit the game. Just turn it off. What the game really needs is a custom soundtrack, which the PS3 currently doesn’t offer. The friend and game invite functions are also poor. Games tend to be filled with people that weren’t invited and there is no way to lock the room or to boot people, other than asking them to leave. Again, this is more a limitation of the platform. In the end, Eye of Judgment is hampered by issues that the system itself should have remedied months ago, but it is not nearly enough to keep this from being a must-play for the PS3 owning CCG fans out there. All eight of us.