'Culdcept Saga,' 'Poker Smash' bring something extra to card games

No matter how many people are playing "Halo" or "Madden" at any given moment, you can bet that many more are playing solitaire, poker or Uno. And not with a $5 deck of cards - they're using the awesome processing power of modern computers to play the games their grandparents loved.

Video-game publishers have had a hard time figuring out how to make money from such "casual" gamers. After all, why would you pay for solitaire software when you can get it free from so many places on the Internet? There have been some worthwhile card-game packages (like Nintendo's "Clubhouse Games," for the DS) and a pile of mostly execrable poker products, but for $30 or $40 you ought to get something extra.

Take 2003's "Culdcept," which cleverly blended card collecting with a board game. Without breaking any sales records, it did well enough to warrant a follow-up - and for those of us in the "Culdcept" cult, its new sequel is manna from heaven.

-"Culdcept Saga" (Namco Bandai, for the Xbox 360): The "Culdcept" idea has been frequently - and accurately - described as Monopoly meets Magic: The Gathering. Each level is a game board consisting mostly of different-coloured properties. Each turn, you roll a random number; if you land on an empty square you can park a monster on it. If you land on an opponent's square, you have to either pay rent or fight with the occupying creature.

Once you summon a monster, you can play another card to use a more powerful weapon, add armour or cast a spell. And you need to consider the property's value and its dominant element (air, earth, fire or water), as well as whether your creature is compatible. The more territory you control, the more gold you can earn, and the first player to collect a target amount wins.

With nearly 500 different cards, "Saga" will keep "Culdcept" fans busy for a long time. But it has some undeniable flaws. Matches can drag on for hours. The single-player story is just awful (and, thankfully, skippable). Luck can overwhelm careful strategy. But if you liked the original game - or if you're a newcomer looking for something different - "Culdcept Saga" is a real treat. Three stars out of four.

-"Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Beginning of Destiny" (Konami, for the PlayStation 2): "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is certainly a more familiar brand than "Culdcept," with cartoons and comic books bolstering the popularity of the trading card game. Konami has been trying to extend the franchise into video games for a while now, but still hasn't been able to replicate the fun of duelling face-to-face with a friend.

A "Yu-Gi-Oh!" match takes place on a four-by-five grid. Monster cards played on the middle rows can attack each other; cards played on the back rows are used to cast spells or set traps. If you break through your foe's front line you can slash points from his score, and the first player to zero loses.

"The Beginning of Destiny" gets the game mechanics right but surrounds them with a deeply tedious high school simulation in which you try to gain acceptance as the new kid on campus. You spend a lot of time aimlessly chatting with characters from the anime series, and they're all rendered in amateurish, lifeless graphics that wouldn't have passed muster on the PlayStation 1. Once again, Konami has missed an opportunity to expand the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" fan base. One star.

-"Poker Smash" (Microsoft, for the Xbox 360): The "match-three" puzzle game - such as "Bejeweled," "Hexic" or "Puzzle Quest" - is a staple of Xbox Live Arcade but new studio Void Star Creations has given it a fresh twist by adding playing cards. Instead of lining up jewels, you move around cards to create poker hands of three-of-a-kind or better, and it's thrilling when you can pull off that elusive royal flush.

You gain more points by chaining together hands or by creating hands requested by the computer, and you can earn bombs to clear away those pesky cards that are blocking your full house. A puzzle mode gives you just a few moves to clear the screen, and you can challenge another player in person or online. It's very addictive and a bargain at $10. Three stars.

News Added: 20 February, 2008

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