What is it about me that makes me so susceptible to trading card games? Yes, world, I used to play Tragic: The Gathering, spending a fair amount of my lunch money on Revised and Fallen Empires booster packs, back before everyone knew how terrible Fallen Empires would wind up being for the game. (Apparently it was overprinted and overbought by many game stores, causing some of them to actually go out of business since it never wound up selling all that well.) I mostly stopped playing by the time Ice Age came out, which was lucky for me, since that was around the time that they started their block format, which probably would've hooked me for good.

Unfortunately, just as I was starting college, the Star Wars CCG came out. It's still arguably the most complicated collectible card game to ever come out, which you can judge for yourself by skimming some of the "advanced rulebook" (PDF link). Although it was one of the best-selling card games out there for a while (and I should know, having spent a couple thousand bucks worth of student loan money on it), Lucasfilm in its infinite wisdom decided to yank the license away from Decipher, the company that was publishing the game, and give it to Wizards of the Coast, which, uncoincidentally, is owned by Hasbro, which Lucasfilm has a long history of publishing Star Wars toys with. That led to the unspectacular Star Wars Trading Card Game, which has apparently been discontinued. How on earth do you screw up a Star Wars card game? That license should basically let you print money, but somehow WOTC managed to screw it up by making what seemed to me to be a relatively lifeless game.

Anyway, I don't play much in the way of trading card games now. I did do a Magic sealed deck game at a local card shop a couple years ago, which was fun, and before that I used to run the Yu-Gi-Oh game days when I worked at a Books a Million, which was fun since that game shouldn't have ever been anywhere near as popular as it was. I don't necessarily understand a lot about anime, and specifically the more or less interchangeable tv show properties that seem to pop up every few years and become inexplicably popular before fading away. (E.g. DBZ, Pokemon, YuGiOh, and the inevitable death of Naruto...)

So why does Eye of Judgment tempt me so? Is it because I have some kind of genetic weakness for card games? Or because I really want to play something on my Playstation 3 that isn't Ninja Gaiden (which I've already beaten twice)? Or the fact that it looks like we'll finally be able to play a game of Dejarik from Star Wars? (Keep in mind that the cards for EOJ are being made by Hasbro....) Or is it just because I've seen a lot of the other high-profile games that are coming out this fall, and most of them have wound up being kind of disappointing for one reason or another?

So Eye of Judgment is shaping up to be my sleeper hit of the fall. The main drawback to it at this point will be the price, I'm sure: I can't see it retailing for less than 80 bucks if they package it with the Playstation Eye. On top of that, you have to consider the fact that you only get 30 cards with the game; an extra 80 will only be available in booster packs. If you want to complete your set, good luck shelling out $3.99 a pop for nine-card packs, or something like that. (No pricing's been announced, but I think they'll be sticking close to the Magic pricing; the cards are being made by Hasbro, after all.)

I'm also curious as to how the developers will prevent piracy of the cards, though: the Cybercode white paper (PDF link) explicitly says that it's possible to read Cybercodes by pointing your camera at a computer monitor, so it's feasible that someone will put out high-res scans of the rare cards on a website, and everyone will just go there and scan them all in to register them for multiplayer matches. Maybe the cards will have individual signatures to prevent that? ("You may be a victim of card counterfeiting. This Eye of Judgment card is not genuine...") It won't help in single-player, since you'll need the physical cards to play that. Maybe you need the physical cards to play in multiplayer, as well, although I know the computer draws your hand for you. In which case, do you have to go through your entire deck to find the physical cards that match up to your hand, or what?

So many unanswered questions.... At the very least, the technology behind Eye of Judgment should make for some interesting applications in the future. I'm sure every Sony developer and media relations guy will have a Cybercode section of their business card in a year or so. I'm also sure that the mucky-mucks at Hasbro are salivating at the thought of porting Magic Online to the PS3 with support for the Playstation Eye. Now that would be an interesting situation, although they'd probably have to print special Cybercode editions of their sets. Maybe Hasbro and LucasArts will team up to make some kind of official Dejarik game for the Star Wars fans out there?

Well, another Game Night has come and gone. It was exciting to finally play something cooperatively, rather than competitively. Everyone was in good spirits, and we had a wonderful time. Some of us went off to raid, while others like myself quested and leveled. Early questing doesn't make for great video, but take a peek anyway:

Click here to listen to the GameSpot UK Podcast

As you may or may not know I've been meandering my way around Europe, slowly heading toward Leipzig, Germany for the big games convention. My first stop was London where I did what most tourists do: eat blood (I will get you back for that Justin), get my picture taken with R2-D2 & C3PO, and crash the GameSpot UK offices and their podcast.

So for all of you out there that can't get their podcast fix by the HotSpot alone, I have logged in to an Internet café from Paris and typed on this crazy keyboard to spread the word about the great job the GameSpot UK folks do on their regular podcast. They're even great when I'm there to ruin things. Well, what are you waiting for? Check it out!

*Spurs got killed 3-1 by Everton at the premiership match I went to. At least the home team managed one goal. You've never seen a crowd go crazy until you've been to a football match (I'm still in Europe so I'm legally bound to call it football) and the home team scores. It's like they won the SuperBowl every single time.

GameSpot UK has launched a new blog to house our collective thoughts and ramblings. London Calling is now available here, and we'll be posting new content on a regular basis.

Highlights so far include an interview with Girls Aloud and a look at the EyeToy feature in SingStar 90s. Let us know about anything you'd like to see in the blog, and don't forget you can always get in touch with our podcast by emailing podcast@gamespot.co.uk

Secret of Mana is one of the most memorable games of my childhood. It has a mesmerizing soundtrack (just thinking about the game brings Angels' Fear and other classic songs to mind), wonderful graphics that literally push the SNES to the limit, and an epic story of world-changing proportions. It also features one of the most depressing endings in any game I have ever played to this day. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it is the most depressing ending I've ever seen.

The game begins, predictably enough, with a young male orphan protagonist, who manages to accidentally come into contact with the sacred Mana Sword and is promptly banished from the village that raised him. It's pretty obvious that any game that starts off like this isn't going to hold any punches, and it doesn't let down at all.

You discover that by drawing the sword, you've disrupted the balance of the entire world, and now you must travel to the eight Mana Seeds hidden across the planet and seal them before the evil Empire can revive the Mana Fortress. Along the way you pick up a girl who is searching for her lover Dyluck, a Mana Sprite, and a baby Flammie (the last of a dragon-like race).

Throughout the entire game you're essentially trying to do two things: seal the Mana Seeds, and rescue Dyluck. You manage to seal seven of the eight seeds, and on your way to finish the last, the Empire beats you there and in a single blow undoes all your work and revives the Mana Fortress. But its ok, there's a loophole you can exploit: you can seal all eight at the same time if you make it to the Pure Land and reunite your sword with the Mana Tree.

You travel to the Pure Land, which is literally the longest, most tedious and downright difficult dungeon in RPG history, and fight your way through it only to have the Mana Fortress make a pit-stop and destroy the tree before your very eyes. Uh...ok... Then you find out that there's one last chance: you have to stop the Mana Fortress. If you don't, the Mana Beast (lots of Mana things in this game) will come and destroy the world. Oh, and by the way, your mom was the tree, so you just got to watch her die. Wonderful.

Flammie takes you to the Mana Fortress where you ultimately confront Thanatos, the one in charge. He kidnapped Dyluck earlier in the game and despite two rescue attempts has still got him, so it looks like you'll get to kill two birds with one Mana Stone and save the world and Dyluck at once. Not so fast. Thanatos takes over Dyluck's body, and Dyluck sacrifices himself to get rid of him! And to make matters worse, you took too long and the Mana Beast is knocking on your door.

So you go outside, and guess what? The Mana Beast, the ultimate weapon of the gods, is your friend Flammie! Sure, he looks a bit different, but things are bound to change when you get the wrath of the gods injected into you. So now you have to kill your lovable pet dragon, who has become the incarnation of Mana. Oh, and doing so will banish your other friend the Sprite from your world forever.

You do the unthinkable, and sure enough, your friend ceases to exist. And then it starts snowing. Only the snow is actually the ashes of your friend Flammie. Taking stock of things, Dyluck's dead, Flammie's dead, the Sprite is basically dead, Mana's dead, it's raining your friend's ashes, and your parents are still dead. But, "We must be strong!" you say, as you hold hands with the girl and run and skip through the epilogue, which doesn't quite confirm whether or not you're still banished from your home.

And so you save the world, at the cost of virtually everything you learn to love and hold dear. As much as I love the game itself, I really can't say anything great about the ending. It's just downright depressing.

What about you? What games did you play that were excessively depressing? Can you think of one more depressing than Secret of Mana? Sound off in the comments section! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The life of a GameSpot Editor isn't always cupcakes on your birthday, happy hours on payday, and free bagels every Friday. Lurking in the shadows, striking fear into each and every employee is a terrible game. A game known as: Big Rigs.

Alex first discovered the pain and misery that Big Rigs was capable of way back in 2003. The game's true awfulness and status as the only game in GameSpot history to ever receive a 1.0 has been well documented, but one thing hasn't been documented: Alex's use of the game to punish staff, screen potential hires, and train new editors on exactly what the bottom of the barrel looks like.

Sick of being forced to sit and endure the broken gameplay every time I crossed Alex, I grabbed a camera, determined to expose his evil ways to the world. He seemed more than happy to brag to the camera about his methods, but hopefully this video will put an end to Alex's reign of terror so that we, GameSpot Editors, can be punished for our misdeeds in less harsh ways, like getting punched in the eye or pushed down a flight of stairs.

*I'm headed to Europe for a bit of vacation before I cover the Leipzig Games Convention so you won't be seeing or hearing much from me until the end of August. As always, thanks for watching!

The best part about owning a newer, faster PC: I can render these goofy videos in like four minutes, instead of the 45-60 minutes it took on my old machine.