Magic The Gathering: Armageddon

Players choose one of five colors/magical disciplines: Red (fire magic, mountain creatures) White (healing/curative magic, knights/soldiers), Blue (water elements/creatures, counter magic) Green (elves, forest creatures) and Black (death magic, undead creatures) and fight another wizard on a magical playfield. Each player can summon magical creatures to do their bidding, but they can also directly attack another wizard, or they can use their magical energy for defense. Players can move around the playfield, occupying one of five spots.

Targeting is achieved through a trackball; move the cursor to the opponent you wish to attack or to an area on the playfield where you would like to make a creature appear. The longer you hold the summon button, the more powerful the resulting creature will be, so there's a trade-off in speed for power.

The gameplay can be particulary difficult. In addition to becoming skilled with a trackball, there are lots of buttons to press as you try to create creatures to fight for you. Shifting your strategy on the fly is often necessary. You may want to create big creatures, but if your opponent is swarming you with tons of little enemies, you will have to go on the defensive.

This is an unusual game in many respects -- a mix between a strategy game and a fighting game.

Acclaim's Mountain View, California-based coin-op division went out of business shortly after creating this game. It never went into full production, which is a shame, since the title had both an innovative, complex gameplay and a hot license going for it. Only a handful of units shipped (one was spotted in the Tomorrowland arcade at Walt Disney World in 1998; another showed up at Namco's WonderPark in San Jose, CA the same year), but few people even know this game exists. Multiple previews of the game appeared in GamePro magazine, as well as other enthustiast publications.

This was Acclaim's third coin-op, joining its previous titles of NBA Jam Extreme and Batman Forever. The game was not released for any home systems, and has no relation to Acclaim's "Magic The Gathering" titles for the Sony PlayStation.

Acclaim's arcade chipset is called Epidemic. The 3-D polygonal graphics are powered by a dual-processor Obsidian 3Dfx board.