Rivals at War: 2084 is the followup to Hothead Games popular game, Rivals at War. Like the original, this one too is a card based battle game but set in a more futuristic battle arena. The story is as follows: the year is 2084 and with the help of alien technology, humans can now travel to distant planets and stars. Join the battle for domination as rival forces battle it out for control. Command and train an elite squad of space marines that you can upgrade with weapons, gear, and skills in order to become the best in the universe.

At its heart, Rivals at War: 2084 is a card based battle game. You start off by picking out a deck that will consist of your initial fighting force. These six soldiers will be with you for much of the beginning of the game until you see fit to replace them with better soldiers. Each soldier has its own rank as well as its own stats that you can level up by augmenting them with weapons, gear, tactics, and skill cards. Each can be earned from playing matches or buying card packs in the store using in-game currency. You start off with a limited amount of funds so you’ll have to battle and win to gain more. Of course you can take the easy way out and just purchase currency using real money.

Matches are broken up into regular campaigns and quick matches. Quick matches are just matches that you play against others to gain XP and money. Campaign matches are like tournaments that you play that usually consist of 10-or more game rounds against a group of people. As you win, you gain points. The person with the most points at the end of all the rounds wins the pot. There are usually prizes for first, second, and third place finishes. Just so you don’t feel like you wasted your time, participants will also receive a little something for finishing all rounds.

Graphically, the game is pretty amazing. All battles are rendered in full 3D with very detailed soldiers and environments. You can check out the action from pretty much any angle and can either follow a specific player or have it randomly switch. You can even view the action from a top down perceptive to see everything that is going on.

Since this is a card based game, you don’t really play the game per se. For the most part, all you’ll be doing is managing your soldiers, upgrading their weapons, gear, and skill set, and choosing whether or not they’ll have specific tactics assigned to them at the beginning of each match. You’ll also be collecting and managing all the cards you get. The battles are automatically done for you and you can choose to either watch them or skip ahead to the results.

Overall, Rivals at War is a fantastic card based battle game. I’ve been playing all weekend long trying to make my soldiers the best they can be and it’s a very hard game to put down once you start. It can be fun when you’re winning but when you’re losing it just makes you want to try your luck at the cards and try to get something better to upgrade your soldiers with. That leads to the one major dislike of the game and it’s that earning dollars just takes a very long time to do as opposed to coins. You earn a ton of coins but you can’t use them to buy the good stuff. You need dollars for the good stuff and some of the card packs seem a bit on the expensive side. That means you’ll have to manage your funds wisely and only pick up the packs that you need. I really love this game as it’s a card game I can understand and one where I can view and actual battle and not just watch static cards pretending to battle each other.

App Store Link: Rivals at War: 2084
Version: 1.1
Developer: Hothead Games
Price: Free
In-app Purchases: Yes
Compatible Devices: (Universal App) – iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.