Card battles and videogame visuals meld into one as Sony explores the potential merger of card based videogames. From its plastic tower, The Eye places its judgement on traditional gameplay with its own version of the future.

Eye of Judgement is a first of its kind which could potentially turn Sony’s experiment into a classic. When you purchase The Eye of Judgement you’ll find everything you need to get into the card battle/ gaming action. Included in the plastic wrapping is the new Eye toy from Sony, renamed and remodelled as the Playstation Eye. You will also receive a special stand for the Eye, grid based map made out of cloth, a “starter pack” of playing cards and the PS3 The Eye Of Judgement game disc. Setting up this gaming rig only takes a few moments and then you’re ready to wage war in The Eye of Judgement.

The appeal of Eye of Judgement will mainly interest strategy fans, card collectors, and fantasy gaming fans who can get enough of Trolls and Elves. The core gameplay of Eye of Judgement basically boils down to a turn-based strategy game with a fancy interface and a physical item (cards) as characters instead of being designed internally. Truthfully, Sony didn’t really need to go all out with the cards and camera peripheral, The Eye of Judgement could have all been duplicated wholly in the game and had the same results, but that wouldn’t be any fun would it? Making The Eye of Judgements based on "real" cards means new characters, spells and cards that can be created in the future and an extra revenue source for the SONY and new options for the gamer. The Eye of Judgement is a gaming gamble, its either going to work, or it’s not, and only time will tell if Sony made the right wager.

The mechanics of the game revolve around a nine squared grid where each player takes turns placing cards until one is victorious. How you win in Eye of Judgement is easy, however getting there is the hard part. To win all you have to do is take over five of the nine grids. For more rules each player gets to use a deck of 30 cards, and draws five to start. Then every turn you get to place cards depending on your mana (a resource that is replenished every round) and grab another card from the deck. The cards you place will either be in the form of a summoned character, or a spell that you want to cast. If its easier think of The Eye of Judgement like a chess game of Tic-Tac-Toe with monsters instead of X’s and O’s.

The creatures in The Eye of Judgement range from mechanical metal creations to the more classical sense of fantasy, with Demons, Goblins, and Elves. In this sense The Eye of Judgement seems a little unfocused in its fantasy world with an unrealistic balancing between species and machines. Since there is no story besides the intro of people battling each other, the creatures seem underwhelming. If this was a card game matched with a brand like any popular Japanese card game, or a license like Marvel then it would instantly have more appeal. The spell cards you can cast aren’t as wide spread as creature summoning, but they are just as effective. The spells can chance the alignment of the game square, cause damage and other various properties. Thinking of using more than creature vs. creature is a good way to mix up the action.

Playing against the computer over and over can get real boring. The difficulty level is surprisingly challenging on easy and upwards from there. Even with the challenge of finally defeating the computer, The Eye of Judgement feels lacking. The lacking part isn’t some unknown factor, its human interaction. With another person joining into the game, The Eye of Judgement becomes a friendlier and fun game. Sitting down and battling a friend feels like a real board game with poker faces and this is the shinning moment in Eye. If you decide to go online, the difficulty curve can be steep depending on your deck and the level of experience you have with the inner workings of the game. Since, I didn’t have too much like with vs. the computer; you can imagine how badly I got served online. If you have a friend who is interested in this game as well, then it might help keep your interest as you become good enough to win a few online.

Going online also has a few hitches that frustrate the action making it difficult to relax and enjoy. Online you have to register your deck of cards within the game and then during battle the computer determines which card you have drawn from your deck. This takes away one aspect of cheating with the whole deck laid out before you, but searching through all your cards to find one card isn’t fun and feels ultimately unnecessary. If players want to cheat they can easily print out copies of any card they want on a high end printer and add them to their deck. It doesn’t make them instantly win, but it would give the cheater an unfair advantage. If you manage to get into The Eye of Judgement, the game supports Leaderboards so you can be ranked online.

The idea of using the camera is a neat twist to conventional game mechanics, although with innovation that includes hardware usually follows with the possibility of bugs or hardware, and software issues. In The Eye of Judgement’s case it is the hardware interfacing with the printed cards. In almost ever match I would have some slight issues with the Playstation Eye not being able to read the card which either hauled my progress and called for a restart, or would have to be fussed with until it properly was inputted. Even in a square that it previously had a successful read, the eye can have a difficult time reading the code imprinted in the cars. When the eye has an error reading a card you have to reposition the card until the eye reads it. Thankfully you can watch the progress on your TV and adjust accordingly. This is a minor set back in a game that runs fairly smoothly in other regards, but it is something you should keep in mind before you purchase The Eye of Judgement. Since the game automatically looks for updated patches when you boot up, expect Sony to be on top of this issue in the near future.

The Eye of Judgement is a unique approach to strategy gaming that successfully merges two form of strategy gaming. Putting together videogame mechanics with hand placed battle cards is an interesting application to something that could have been accomplished without all the extras. This portrays the Eye of Judgement as gimmick aimed at nailing two groups of people, the strategy gamer, and the collectable card battler. Gimmick or not, the Eye of Judgement is an interesting idea that doesn’t fully play out to the mass market.

Gamers who will get the most out of the Eye will have to be the hardcore strategy fan with a high threshold of patience and a love for turn-based strategy games. Adding the value of the Playstation Eye, The Eye of Judgement package becomes a visible purchase for those ready to invest the time to learn this daunting experience. For all others, I’d pass on The Eye and its collectable; scanable cards until it focuses on a more interesting subject.

Gameplay:6, Graphics/Sound:6.5, Innovation:8, Mojo: 7 Final: 6.5 / 10