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It's hardly a shock to hear that Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will put you in mind of Magic: The Gathering, but perhaps more surprising is the sheer extent to which it will make you think about PopCap games, too. Blizzard's latest is virtual card battling at its most physical and also its most ingratiating.Cards don't snap when you deploy them - they slam onto the tabletop, venting particle effects and ominous wheezes. New packs glow and then bust open when purchased from the in-game store, and enemy heroes explode in slow motion, scattering fragments across the screen when defeated. You can mess around with the 3D churches and taverns and virtual pets that sit along the edge of the board, the colour scheme is heavy with purples and deep reds and magical, electric blues, gloriously pulpy Warcraft art is emblazoned over the face of every minion or spell card, and the loading bar even says funny PopCap-type things. Bribing guards. Straightening decks.
It all makes sense, too. This is a very traditional collectible card game at heart, but, throughout the design, elements have been streamlined and complications untangled. Player choice hasn't been reined in so much as redirected - channelled into a swifter, more immediate kind of battler. The kind of battler that will fit in around a few levels of Plants vs Zombies.
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