Hearthstone review

CARD COUNTING

The real crux of any CCG is how you acquire cards for your collection. Blizzard has opted for the most traditional method, where you buy packs of random cards to expand your collection. Cards are divided into different rarities – Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary – with the rarest cards being very hard to find. A pack of five cards can be bought for 100 gold, which can be earned in the game by completing challenges it set for you. Alternatively, you can pay hard cash, at around £1 a pack.

Hearthstone is a great game, but eventually you’ll want to spend some money on card to differentiate yourself from the pack. We’ve spent £7 to date (on seven packs) and earned another five packs of cards through playing

This is one of the best free-to-play titles we’ve seen. There’s no sign of micro transactions as you play or build your decks. The shop to buy cards (with cash or in-game gold) is kept well out of the way of the gameplay.

You can earn gold by completing challenges, which in turn let you buy cards without spending a penny

There’s no card trading between players in Hearthstone. You can however break unwanted cards down into Arcane Dust, which can then be spent to buy any card you want, again the rarer cards cost a lot more. For example, break down five unwanted Rare cards and you can pick any Rare card you want, but you’d need 20 such cards to make one Epic card.

New cards are clearly marked for your attention, while the crystals below the pictures denote their rarity

Before you start doing the maths, crafting a handful of decks could be pricey, and collecting every card would indeed be very expensive. Thankfully a surprising amount of gameplay is here without spending a penny. You start with a healthy selection of cards, and with a few games against AI controlled opponents, you quickly unlock more. Getting all the free cards for all the character classes will take you a while and give you a good idea of each hero’s tactics. By then you’ll have a good idea if you’re keen to put serious amounts of time, or cash into the game.

PULL UP A SEAT

Blizzard has done a good job of balancing the game, it matches you with opponents of similar skill and we’ve yet to feel outgunned by an opponent with a deck of Epic cards. Players online have even shown that you can get a long way, all the way to the game’s Legendary player ranking, using only the basic cards and some solid strategy.

Blizzard has big plans for Hearthstone in the near future too, plans that should make it even more accessible for everyone. The game will be available on iPad and Android tablets this year for easier playing on the sofa. There will be an Adventure mode, with single-player quests against AI controlled opponents.

Hearthstone looks to be doing for CCGs what World of Warcraft did for MMOs, bringing them out of a dark corner and bathing them in a cosier, more accessible light; we’d be amazed if the game didn’t turn out to be huge. So give Hearthstone a chance, it’s colourful, fun, easy-to-pickup and deep enough for all but the most hardcore of CCG fans.