Would someone else please buy Eye of Judgment so I have someone to play with?

By Joe Fourhman | August 30, 2008

I guess the end is near for Sony’s undervalued and intimidating card/video game, The Eye of Judgment. Today I noticed that Target has the bundle pack (game + camera + camera stand + playmat + cards) on clearance at $35. That’s not much more than the price of the PSEye camera by itself, sold separately.

And if you know your Target, you might score another surprise. Check the two zones where they sell card games… one is usually by the checkout counters and the other is tucked on a back wall in toys. There is often a box of random cheap $1 trading card packs, and today I found a single Eye of Judgment Series 1 booster stashed in there. Those were normally a wallet-busting $4 apiece. (I have also found genuine Japanese Pokemon TCG boosters in there on occasion, but that’s neither here nor there.)

You can count me among those initially skeptical of Eye of Judgment, what with the heavy barrier to entry and the general feeling of maxxed-out gimmickry. But I gave it a shot and it is a nice card game, with an interesting core ruleset (although grafted onto a completely vapid and predictable steampunk-fantasy world setting.) Plus, the PS3’s involvement actually makes a difference. It’s not just there to render HD battle scenes, it tracks all the numerical elements and pulls off a couple gameplay tricks that you can’t do in a normal wholly paper-based card game. The game’s biggest failing is that it gets slow because you have to let the Eye see all your cards as you play them.

I know exactly one other guy who has the game and we have played a bunch of online matches. If you’re a card game fan, EoJ does a great job of maintaining all the lovely physicality of tabletop games while adding in some fairly impressive tech and eye candy.

And hey, you can always use the camera in other PS3 games. Like Burnout Paradise. And a virtual aquarium thing that lets you tickle fish.