[NewsPoster]

This reviewer has been avoiding Hearthstone since it first came out. We doubted our conviction in being able to resist spending scads of money on card packs, or spending on extra money on a card that represented something with which we had a particular attachment from our time playing World of Warcraft. Time and experience dealing with games with in-app micro-transactions later, we think we're finally ready to take the plunge, now that Hearthstone is on iOS. In a nutshell, we enjoyed the experience, and find the game as a whole charming.

In reviewing this game I want to mention, in the interest of full disclosure, that I used to work at Blizzard Entertainment. That was roughly 10 years ago, so I never worked on Hearthstone in any capacity. That relationship has no bearing on this review positively or negatively ... aside from having fond memories of various elements that make up the world of Azeroth, something tens of millions of current and former Warcraft players no doubt share.

Shut up Hemnet.

For those who haven't yet played Hearthstone elsewhere, the game is a collectible card battle game, similar to -- just as an example -- Magic: The Gathering. Players use cards to summon creatures and perform actions while attempting to whittle their opponent's "hero" down to zero hit points. Each card or action has a mana cost associated with it. Both players begin with one mana each, with their total mana increasing by one each turn until they reach a max of 10. All creatures have health and attack stats, but a few have special abilities. A "Battlecry" ability is an effect that happens once, when the creature is first summoned, such as summoning another minion or doing damage to the enemy hero. Having the "Charge" ability means the creature can attack right away after being summoned, while everything without that ability must wait until the next turn to be used. An interesting mechanic in Hearthstone is The Coin. Each match begins with both players drawing three cards and a coin flip. The player that wins the coin flip gets to go first of course. However, the player that lost the flip gets an extra card drawn from their deck and The Coin. The Coin is a zero-cost card that grants a temporary extra mana for the round in which it's played. The extra card and The Coin card is a tremendous advantage, so much so that losing the flip is actually winning ... at least in our mind. If one is going to play, a battle.net account is required. There's a very limited off-line single player experience, which doubles as a tutorial. During this, the player battles a handful of familiar World of Warcraft NPCs from Hoggar to Illidan Stormrage. After that, the player must log onto their battle.net account, even if they want to play practice games against AI opponents to level up their heroes, and earn the 30 cards that make up the basic decks of each class. After all 30 cards in each basic deck are earned, the player must earn additional packs with achievements, or buy them with either "gold" or in-app purchases.

At first, it's very easy to earn booster packs of cards, we got one just for playing on our iPhone. Completing "quests" will also earn the player gold. A quest is a task basically like an achievement, such as playing five games against human opponents, or winning three such games. Completing quests will also apparently earn players rewards in other Blizzard games on the same battle.net account. For instance, if we ever play World of Warcraft again, we will have a free Hearthstone-themed horse waiting for us when we arrive, for completing the first quest of winning three games. Obviously, we preferred the experience of playing on the larger screen of our iPad mini, but the game was perfectly playable on our iPhone 5 as well. The UI is slightly different obviously, due to the limited real estate. The player's hand sits off to the side, but tapping on a card brings it to the forefront, and it's very readable. We found it very easy to play on our phone while sitting on a bus, or having lunch.

iPhone UI

The app runs smoothly, although waiting around to be matched with another human is kind of tedious at times. We like the mechanics and all the different spells and abilities available with the cards we've been able to gather and see played, so that part of the app seems solid. Ultimately, what keeps us coming back to Hearthstone are the visuals, sounds, and names of Warcraft that bring back memories of playing RTSs and MMOs with our friends, while at the same time providing a new experience with a solid card battle game. We get to reminisce about past adventures, without the stress of needing to heal anyone but ourselves. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is free on iTunes for iOS and Google Play for Android, with in-app purchases ranging from $2 to $25. Who Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is for: Strategically-minded people who enjoy battle card games. It's not a requirement to be familiar with Warcraft to enjoy, but the experience will be infinitely more charming. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft might not be for: People who find battle card games juvenile, or don't like being limited by things like the increasing mana over several rounds mechanic, or the fact that losing the coin toss is actually beneficial.

-- Michelle Elbert (@mcelbert)