For those who enjoy playing games online, the choice of genres has been a tad limiting of late. Sure, there's loads of MMORPGs and games, but what if you enjoy something that involves a bit more... thought? This will be especially true for those of you who loved massive sessions. Admittedly, BattleForge doesn't look to be shaping up to be a StarCraft-beater, but it could certainly keep you busy while you wait for the much anticipated StarCraft II.

Developed by Phenomic of Spellforce-fame, BattleForge is a card-based Real Time Strategy game which on the surface sounds a bit odd, however it actually works rather well. Each copy of the game comes with a number of randomly selected cards, a bit like Magic: The Gathering. Although the title initially comes with enough to play the entire game, players are encouraged to trade cards with each other using the marketplace and community forums to create more diverse sets. As well as trading, it will also be possible to purchase booster packs to expand your power. You may ask, what's the point of these cards? They provide additional tactics, magic spells, soldier units, battle structures and there looks to be quite a lot of room for expansion, all in all.

The soldier units range from weakling warriors and archers, to huge monsters that have special abilities. When encountering some of these, you can even earn cards by defeating them, enhancing your army even further. To ensure that cards are not too overpowered, each card has a certain number of 'charges', so that you can't 'spam' use them, overrunning your opponent with the one tactic, a common problem in games. Also, only twenty cards can be used in each campaign scenario.

To use these cards, two resources are needed (did you really expect an RTS game that didn't require some sort of resource farming?) in the form of energy and orbs. Energy comes from energy shrines which the player needs to build on top of so as to absorb this life-blood. Orbs are the magic of this world, essentially. There are four types: frost, fire, nature and shadow. All of these are accumulated from specific points on the map that you need to activate to gain the resource. Also, one important thing to note regarding energy is that it is key to summon units close to structures that you own as if you summon a unit away from your other structures and soldiers, the new unit will only function at half-health, making them rather vulnerable to enemy attacks. This adds quite a useful tactical element to proceedings.

The units available are looking pretty interesting so far, assuming nothing changes. Skeleton warriors are possible with special powers, unique to their type, such as an unholy armour ability which provides some defence against opposing units. Other units provide special attack moves, and even structures offer up special abilities such as a defence tower that can fire energy blasts at enemies. Siege units are also available enabling attack towers to be formed and defensive walls to be built.

As always there is a slightly tenuous story to explain everything. The poor old mortal humans got caught up in a clash between insane gods and ancient giants (what an unlucky combination) and have to stick together using the four Orbs and a mysterious forge that makes legends come to life, meaning you can create the armies provided for within card-types. All a bit odd really and I doubt many people will really care, and rightly so, it should all be about the gameplay.

Controlling things is extremely simple to do if you have ever played an RTS game before. You can drag select units, right click to move around or attack, and can organise units into groups using 'ctrl' and - if you double click a single unit - it selects all others of the same type. All fairly simple, meaning there are no huge problems getting to grips with the game even with the new card based system which is extremely intuitive.

With both a full single player campaign and a wealth of online options, there is certainly plenty to do. Online there is the option for Player Versus Player battles as well as co-operative online tussles with up to 12 players competing together to complete co-operative quests and campaigns. There will be 40 large and detailed maps available at launch which should keep many players occupied for a while to come. The gameplay is pretty typical of decent RTS games and starts with a well laid out tutorial, although it is slightly sluggish in places at this stage. Everything, in fact, is pretty much what you would expect, you view the battlefield from the top down and you use the cards to spawn units (rather than clicking a create unit button). The story in the single player mode is led by NPC voices and there are always many minor objectives to achieve along the way to completing the section.

Admittedly I am a bit unsure of just how special the card system will be, but it also doesn't really matter as BattleForge still has the potential to be a very entertaining RTS game even if this system isn't necessarily as amazing as it sounds on paper. The idea of combining an MMO-style community with an RTS feels pretty unique and certainly has the potential to be great fun for a while to come, providing the online gaming community gives it a shot. If things continue in the fashion the beta is suggesting, then BattleForge really deserves to be noticed, so fingers crossed for its full release in March.

By Jennifer Allen