because it lieks Mudkips and doesnt afraid of anything

Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers will be hitting Xbox Live's virtual shelves tomorrow, so don't forget to pick it up!

DotP is a virtual version of the Magic the Gathering trading card game that will only run you 800 MSP ($10) when it releases tomorrow. Unlike Magic: Battlegrounds, this game will play like the actual card game (not volleyball with spells) and unlike Magic Online, it will only cost you $10 to gain access to all the cards in the game (and not $4 per booster pack). There will be DLC in the future, but they will be one-time purchases that add a number of set cards to your game and not random booster packs.

Here are some of the reasons the Magic players out there should pick this up:
-Single player campaign vs. AI opponents
-Cooperative (two-headed giant) campaign vs. AI opponents (Play with a friend in the same room!)
-Online two player, online cooperative (two-headed giant) play, as well as 3-4 player online free-for-all play
-Puzzle mode, which throws you into specific play situations that you must win from
-280 cards available, featuring cards from Invasion all the way up to Shards of Alara

Of course, this game isn't just for veteran Magic players. If you're interested in playing Magic at all, DotP is a great way to learn:
-An online tutorial, allowing you to learn while you play
-A mentoring system to provide live assistance
-In-game hints, an in-game rule book and glossary

Of course, the game is not without flaws, but (in my opinion) they're minor ones when I think about how cheap the game is and how much fun I'll have playing online with my Dtoid buddies. For one thing, the deckbuilding is a bit crippled, only allowing you to change a select number of cards out of a number of premade decks. So you can't quite build a new deck from scratch, but you will hopefully have access to enough cards to make your deck play the way you want it to. While this and the limited card pool (280 cards out of 15,000+) may be upsetting to seasoned Magic players, it's pretty understandable that they'd try to cripple the game in order to keep interest in Magic Online (in which you have to buy individual cards and boosters).



Of course, one of the biggest incentives to players of the card game (and possibly to those who want to start playing) is the promo Garruk Wildspeaker card that will be sent out to anyone who buys the XBLA game and enters the in-game code on this page. Garruk is a pretty damn good card (it's a rare that goes for upwards of $15), so you're definitely getting your money's worth. (BTW, I got a few "WTF is a Planeswalker" comments last time I posted about this deal, so here's a link to the Planeswalker rules for those who are unfamiliar with the card type).

All in all, I think it's going to be pretty fun and I'm hoping some of you out there will give a try, too. Be sure to at the very least try the demo when it goes live tomorrow!

How much this news will excite you may vary depending on whether or not you play the paper card game, but I think it's pretty awesome either way.

Duels of the Planeswalkers will be 800 MSP ($10), which is a lot cheaper than I expected. Especially considering you get a promo Garruk Wildspeaker card, which would cost you anywhere from $15-$20 if you bought a normal one.

I'm very much looking forward to this game and I hope some of you are, too, as I would love to play Magic with my Dtoid buddies. It looks a little dumbed down from the real game (which is to be expected; they don't want to take any steam away from Magic Online), but still a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll be able to put it down long enough when it releases to write a review or something.

So, it's Friday night and you're home alone. You had a long, hard week and you're looking to wind down by curling up with a good ol' video game. But what do you play?

Well, I'm sure most of you are already backstabbing and sniping the night away with Team Fortress 2, but there's another option if that's not your style: Infiniminer.

Infiniminer is a free PC game for Windows that can be downloaded here, along with the runtime packages required to play it. Last week, I hosted a server, but ended up falling asleep waiting for people to join. Sad panda. This week, however, I'm well-rested and ready to mine. Infiniminer is all about digging and building in a giant pixel-y 3D world full of dirt, gold, and lava. It may not look like much, but let me assure you: It's pretty damn fun.

How to get online with Infiniminer:
1. Install Infiniminer v1.5, the XNA 3.0 Runtime, and the .NET 2.0 Runtime (if you haven't already).
2. Install Hamachi and join the network dtoid-mines with the password alsococks.
3. Edit your Infiniminer client configuration file (client.config.txt) with your preferred settings (player name, screen resolution, look inversion, etc).
4. Start up Infiniminer and direct connect to my Hamachi IP Address: 5.140.171.140
5. Mine like there's no tomorrow!

Hopefully we can get a bit more activity this week (though I seriously doubt it with the TF2 updates and free weekend working against me), especially since I'm actually conscious enough to help you guys out if you have issues connecting. I've been trying to get the server public so we can cut the middle man and not have to use Hamachi (which would make everything a hell of a lot easier), but I've failed so far, so I'm just going to run it as usual this week. I'm hoping I can get this straightened out next week and maybe get some more people online and enjoying the game with less setup.

I'll keep the server up for the rest of the night, so feel free to pop in whenever you've got some free time or feel like playing something (possibly) a bit more mellow than TF2. Also, I have the ability to save maps, so please let me know if you want to hang on to an awesome creation you made within the game.

I'll see you in the mines!

Another day, another shameless attempt to get more people in on the awesomeness that is Infiniminer. At least I have a good excuse today: It's Friday! That means that it's time to rock some multiplayer with your fellow Dtoiders, so why not try out something new while you're waiting for the usual games to pick up steam?

In case you didn't catch my last blog, Infiniminer is a free PC game for Windows that can be downloaded here, along with the runtime packages required to play it and the Hamachi networking software that will allow you to play online with the rest of the Destructoid Army. Infiniminer is all about digging and building in a giant pixel-y 3D world full of dirt, gold, and lava. It may not look like much, but let me assure you: It's pretty damn fun.

How to get online with Infiniminer:
1. Install Infiniminer v1.5, the XNA 3.0 Runtime, and the .NET 2.0 Runtime (if you haven't already).
2. Install Hamachi and join the network dtoid-mines with the password alsococks.
3. Edit your Infiniminer client configuration file (client.config.txt) with your preferred settings (player name, screen resolution, look inversion, etc).
4. Start up Infiniminer and direct connect to my Hamachi IP Address: 5.140.171.140
5. Mine like there's no tomorrow!

Infiniminer is a load of fun and I hope to see some of you give it a shot. I'll keep the server up for the rest of the night, so feel free to pop in whenever you've got some free time. Also, I have the ability to save maps, so please let me know if you want to hang on to an awesome creation you made within the game.

I'll see you in the mines!

A few days ago, I was lazily browsing the internet, trying to find something other than homework to waste my time on. With no decent porn to be found, I spent my time contemplating what it would be like to be a gold miner. Of course, I had no idea what it would be like, so I decided to download a sweet XNA game that would educate me on the ways of the miner.

Infiniminer is a 3D mining game for Windows that handles a lot like most FPSes. You'll use the WASD keys to move and the mouse to aim. There are four different classes of miner, each with a standard pickaxe (for diggin' dirt and minin' ore) and the ability to create a variety of blocks with a variety of purposes (normal blocks for buildin', TNT blocks for 'splodin', and jump blocks for...well, jumpin'). Each class also has varying limits of how much ore (which is used to create blocks) and loot (which is essential to winning the game) they can carry.



Seem pretty simple so far? Well, it is. When you first jump into the world of Infiniminer, you'll be greeted by a fairly large mass of randomly generated dirt and rock blocks that you can dig around in. This mass goes pretty far down and even towers up a bit on occasion, giving you a lot of interesting structures to work with. Of course, you can be adventurous and explore the deep depths of the mass in search of gold and diamonds, or you can mine some ore and build an awesome fortress (which you can TNT to hell when you tire of it). Maybe even a combination of the two! The possibilities are endless when you have such a large space to build on and explore in. Just be careful you don't dig too deep or you might fall to your death (or get toasted by lava, which can surprise you by flooding a hallway when you decide to dig the wrong area).

I've been having a blast exploring and building in Infiniminer, but I've actually only scratched the surface of this awesome game. You see, Infiniminer isn't about wandering around a giant clod of pixelated dirt until you a die a horrible pixelated death. It's about wandering around a giant clod of pixelated dirt until cause your buddies a horrible pixelated death (or manage to collect enough loot to win the game)!



Yes, Infiniminer is all about the multiplayer, which is apparent from the second that it asks for a server IP and forces you to pick between red team and blue team. While I can't say a whole lot about mutliplayer, as I have yet to get enough people together to play a solid game, I can say that it has to be a load of fun to play with your friends online. I actually spent a good three to four hours yesterday playing with a friend over my network, just screwing around on it. I took it upon myself to build a bitchin' underground fort while my friend decided to blow me and most of the map up with TNT. Needless to say, my underground fort transformed into a floating sky fortress within a few hours of play, as my friend leveled most of the map. I had to build a pretty long ladder to get back up there, but it was worth it to hang out in my bitchin' sky fort.

In case you're wondering how this mess of explosions and mining can possibly make up a competitive team game, here's a rundown of the actual game rules (as if anyone plays Infiniminer to win): Teams compete to collect the maximum amount of loot (which can be customized, but the default is $10,000) before the other team does by digging deep and searching for gold ($200) and diamond ($1,000) blocks. Once a player mines one of these blocks, the loot is pocketed and has to be taken to the surface in order to count for the team's total. Of course, each player can only hold so much loot in their pockets at one time, so it may take a few trips when you stumble upon that gold mine you've been looking for (unless you've got some teammates to help you with the hauling). Once the maximum loot amount is hit, that team wins and the map resets, starting a new game. From what I understand, Infiniminer saves the map file each time the server resets the game (I haven't actually completed a game, so I wouldn't know), so don't worry about losing that awesome base from the last game.



Infiniminer is an addicting mutiplayer game that will keep you mining for hours. The game was only released a few weeks ago, so updates to the client are frequent and available from the Zachtronics Industries website. The creator still seems to be working to balance everything out, so a lot of people are complaining when blocks get nerfed in new releases or whatever, but I'm still having fun trying out the latest changes as they're released. Just be sure to keep your old install files in case you find that the newest update isn't to your liking (just remember that your client has to match with the server you're playing on!).

I highly recommend giving Infiniminer a shot if you have a Windows PC (this game is the only reason I'm not on my Linux partition right now) and have a few megabytes free to install the game (along with the XNA and .NET frameworks required to run it). I don't have any specs or anything, but I can't imagine it's too rough on the system requirements, so give it a shot, even if your hardware isn't the latest and greatest. You may want to install Hamachi, also, which will allow you to play online with your fellow Dtoiders.



So, what are you waiting for? Get diggin'!

Hamachi Network Name: dtoid-mines
Hamachi Network Password: alsococks
Hamachi IP Address: 5.140.171.140

Don't forget to edit your client configuration text file with your handle, look inversion, and screen resolution settings before starting Infiniminer!