If you're a huge nerd like me (and Shawn) you will undoubtedly have played some collectible card game. My CCG of choice is Magic: The Gathering. Shawn's is Pokemon. Huge nerds also tend to be interested in overly long and complicated board games like Risk or Monopoly.

Culdcept Saga is a combination of Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly, and it's glorious. If that sounds terrible to you, don't hit the jump, I can't help you.

At the very basic level, the game honestly is a combination between Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly. The board consists of various spaces of various colors. When you land on a space, you have the option of summoning a creature from your hand to live on that space. Creatures have an Attack and Defend rank. If you land on another player's space, you can summon a creature to attack his defender. If your attack beats his defense, you take over the space. If he survives the initial attack and destroys your creature, it's removed from your hand (and you pay the toll on the space). If neither creature dies, you still pay the toll but your creature lives to fight another day.

In addition to creature cards, you can also have item cards (which you equip on your creature during battle to boost their stats, adding strategy to the face-offs) and spell cards, which have a variety of effects, from altering a player's next die roll to paralyzing all red creatures on the board. There are actually 6 types of creatures (and 6 types of land, but only 4 COLORS of each), and the game is far more complex than a short review can possibly encompass. You really have to play it.

Land that you own can be leveled up (just like in monopoly). Leveling a land will increase the toll on that land, as well as increasing the land bonus. Creatures that live on a land of their own color get 10x(land level) additional defensive points. You can only level land that you have passed through on your previous turn.

Your cards all come from your deck, which you construct yourself. You start the single player game with a standard red/green deck of 50 cards. As you win matches, you get additional cards to add to your deck. There are 3,000 cards in the game, giving you...*does math*...~10^100 combinations. Give or take.

The goal of the game is to reach a certain amount of money. The game uses "magic" but it works much better if you think of it as money. Anyway, you need to reach a certain amount before all the other players. You can do this by collecting tolls (rent) when other players land on your spaces, but that's chump change. As you move around the map you pass forts, which grant money. When you've passed all the forts on a map you return to the castle (where you start) and the castle grants you a bonus that's dependent on the number of lands you own, the level of those lands, how many of those lands are the same color as other lands you own in the same section of the board, and also how many "symbols" you own.

A symbol works like a share of stock in a particular color of land. Let's say you own 4 red lands in a certain area of the board and they're all level 1. You can purchase 10 red symbols for 50G, then level all those lands to level 2, increasing the investment to 100G. You get 10% of your symbol value every time you pass the castle, so you'll earn your investment back in 5 rounds. You can also capture other land colors and convert them to red, which increases their value.

All in all, the game is really fun. The gameplay is perfectly balanced, the cards are great, and the boards are sufficiently varied. There are, of course, some complaints. It would be a review from me without the complaints.

First, the game was obviously translated from Japanese by a high school student. The words don't make any sense. 50G is read "50 Magic." A creature with "AT 20" and "HP 30" has 20 Strength and 30 Vitality. Not "Attack" and "Hit Points," but "Strength" and "Vitality." It's clear they modeled the system off existing RPGs, but forgot to look up what those letters mean in English. It will take you a while to get used to.

Second, the die can be a dick sometimes. It seems that the less Magic you have, the less likely you are to roll a high number. If you have 1200G extra and you're 6 spaces from the castle, expect a 7. If you have 9G and you're 6 spaces from the castle, expect 1-1-2-1-3. It's really frustrating. Maybe it's just only noticeable when you're completely screwed over by the game, but it's definitely frustrating.

Third, there's no explanation of where the numbers come from sometimes. I like to think that I have a comprehensive mental picture of the game. I can tell my wife how many red cards are in her hand and how many yellow lands there are available on the board, but when my 40/40 guy faces off against her 30/30 guy, sometimes the game flashes "ABILITY MODIFIED" and her creature turns into 80/60 and I can't figure out why. An explanation or an info pane would have greatly helped.

Finally, the graphics are nothing to write home about. The graphics on the game board are barely PSX quality, and the "battles" consist of the cards sitting side-by-side on the screen, then poorly-rendered weapons wave over your opponent and small holes appear in their card.

Now, all those faults aside, the GAME ITSELF is awesome. If you'll read all my other reviews you'll know I'm one of those crazy game reviewers who care about the quality of the game. This game is quality. End of story.

Plus it's only $20 AND there's a demo on XBOX Live! GO GET IT!