Over the weekend, I had the itch to play the computer version of Magic: the Gathering. No, not the Online variant (although I’ve been dabbling there a bit), but rather the old Microprose version, a standalone game where, for the most part, you wander the world, fighting PvE battles against computer opponents to fatten your deck.

Getting the game to run on XP was a challenge, and took much googlage to conquer. The problem is that the Installer itself will completely fail if you aren’t installing from Windows 95! After much gnashing of teeth, I finally found, on this forum thread, instructions to make it work – namely, download the complete hacked version from Underdogs (interested parties should read the thread for more in-depth instructions). Apparently, my fully legal and paid for CD is now just a coaster. I’m sure that Psychochild feels vindicated.

Even once I got it to work, there are minor issues. Some HUDs simply don’t appear – for example, when buying a card at the store, the ‘Buy (Y/N)’ dialog doesn’t appear, but pressing ‘Y’ or ‘N’ works all the same. Also, the game was never a paragon of stability, even on the platform it was designed for. Crashes are common and the game seems to leak memory like a sieve.

Despite all this, the game is playable, and I’m having a lot of fun. One thing that playing the game does is make me weep for whoever had to code the AI. Magic is an incredibly complicated game, and I can’t even imagine the nightmare of writing AI that can adapt to any sort of circumstances thrown at it. I’ve found the computer is completely baffled by Paralyze spells and Royal Assassins. Sometimes, for no apparent reason it will buff my troops. For the life of me, I couldn’t begin to imagine writing AI that could handle the complexities of Magic in it’s current state. Hell, programmers are still trying to perfect Chess AI!