Hey kids, do you remember the awesome Star Wars collectible trading cards from Topps? Of course you don't, and neither do I, because the shameless whoring of the brand has burned away whatever good memories of Star Wars I ever possessed. Here's Konami's attempt to wring a few more bucks out of science fiction's most used-up intellectual property with an almost certainly crappy free-to-play battle card game.
If you haven't seen this particular style of game before, it goes something like this: you collect a bunch of cards which have RPG-style defense and attack attributes. You put them in a deck, then lay them out in a playing field that differs from game to game. You and your opponent square off, and the player with the best combination of cards and strategy wins, but not after a lot of half-hearted animation and sound effects. It's all based on the system that Magic: The Gathering invented decades ago, but thanks to the advent of free-to-play and in-app purchases, it's back with a vengeance.
The Star Wars version features all your favorite characters from the original trilogy and the one that everyone wishes they could forget. Cards come in three varieties: characters, vehicles, and planets. As if you needed telling, the game includes in-app purchases and a fair bit of social network nagging, including the always-annoying tactic of getting more loot when other players enter your personal code. That means that the Play Store reviews are going to be crammed with people begging you to use their code for a few more in-game goodies.
I'd like to tell you how Star Wars Force Collection plays, but after the compulsory "In a galaxy far far away" scrolling text and some half-hearted movie clips, the game crashed on my phone and wouldn't come back to life. That's about as much time as I'm willing to invest in Star Wars Force Collection, because George Lucas still owes me 140 minutes of my life for Revenge of the Sith.
If you're not a Star Wars fan, avoid this shameless money grab at all costs. If you are a Star Wars fan (and the last fifteen years haven't killed what's left of your tiny, shriveled soul) spend some money on Angry Birds Star Wars or Star Wars Pinball instead.