Heroes of Camelot

The App Store description for Heroes of Camelot is really long. So, because I'm nice, I've written a summary of it for you. Yep, this is what its maker is promising potential players.

Apparently, I'm going to "reclaim Camelot from the Black Knight" by playing this "RPG Multiplayer Battle Card Game", all the while trying to "battle for survival and reclaim [my] land's power by assembling, evolving, and enhancing hundreds of powerful heroes".

There are also promises of lots of multiplayer, with "unique team-based assaults", "PvP battles", and "guild vs. guild combat".

Sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I'll find out if that's the case over the course of seven days, reporting back my findings to you periodically.

How deflating! After finishing the tutorial and going out on a few missions, it's quite clear that Kabam could have replaced all of the words (and there really are so many words) in the App Store description for this one with "card battler like that Rage of Bahamut you all seem to keep playing".

I've already stopped caring about the story. And no amount of slowly appearing words is going to stop me skipping the guff about Britain once being a powerful kingdom and why I need to find a Holy Grail or something because of reasons.

When it comes to gameplay, you get what you'd expect: enter a quest... tap a button to progress... earn XP and Gold for doing so... sometimes, pick up a new card for your collection... occasionally, fight a baddie.

The person that has the most health while being able to deal out the most damage is determined the victor in combat. And it's settled automatically. There's even a big button with the word 'Skip' on it (because why you'd want to sit there and watch the fight slowly play out is probably beyond even the developer).

If you can't tell already, I'm not massively impressed with Heroes of Camelot. When you combine the lacklustre play with the number of times the game has stuttered and lost connection with the servers, it's beginning to feel like the following week may start to drag.

We'll see.

Day 3: Punching the mystical

Today, my party beat up a unicorn.

I'm not sure why we had to do that, as I'm continuing to skip the woefully boring text the game presents all too frequently. But I wanted to point it out to you at the top of this update because the act was so ridiculous and awesome in equal measure.

Three days in with this game and grind has already become a necessity. I keep running up against end-of-area bosses that are too tough for me. And my performance in the online Arena - in which you fight the teams of other players - has been abysmal thus far.

I've learnt something that will undoubtedly improve my odds, though. You see, I've been told that I can Evolve two of the same card into a much rarer single card (as well as Enhance the cards I have by sacrificing weaker ones).

By my doing so, they get a boost in performance and the already-very pretty art on the card gets even more spectacular. It won't enable you to field multiple types of the same card, though, even if they're in a totally different form of evolution.

Still, it's a grind... and it's a slow grind at that. Where some card battlers allow you to tap anywhere on the screen to progress, this one asks you to tap a small button and wait for an unimpressive movement animation to play out.

While slogging through each area again for more cards and experience, you may be tempted to get involved with the chat room that is layered over the main campaign. The quality of the community varies wildly, with chat fluctuating between "A/S/L", game tips, and full-blown racism. On that note, I've just joined a Guild, but the reasons I would want to do are yet to be made clear.

I'll keep wandering around, keep levelling, and get back to you with my final thoughts in a few days' time. Right now, though, I'm underwhelmed at what Heroes of Camelot offers.

A week in and I'm glad my time with Heroes of Camelot is over. It's not a bad game per se, but it's just not that different from all the other card-battlers I've played, and its pace is far too slow to hold my interest.

There are a couple of additions and twists that might tempt serial card-battlers to take a look, of course.

You can field three squads at once during battles, giving you access to 12 cards in a fight. But unless there's some super-high level play I'm missing, the upshot of all this is simply that you have a larger team to field than most battlers.

Each card has its own attributes and special abilities, but for the most part I found that might makes right - if my cards are stronger than yours, I'm going to win every time.

Enhancing and evolving cards has a greater focus in this title than others, but more is not the same as different, and different is what Heroes of Camelot is crying out for.

The game also has an odd definition of "rare". I received plenty of "ultra rare" cards during my playing time, simply for completing standard objectives, such as finishing the tutorial. The number of those cards that must necessarily be in existence stretches the definition of "rare" beyond breaking point.

Because this is an RPG, there's a compulsion to level up, and doing so grants you access to points that increase the time you can play in either the normal campaign or in boss fights.

If the art - which still manages to wow me, on occasion - is appealing to you, there's probably an incentive to stick around, especially if this is your first card-battler. If not, this is a standard entry in the genre, with some lovely art, but a lack of fizz and creativity.