Ironbound

Although strategy games can be extremely addictive under the right circumstances, not many people have the necessary patience to get through matches that last more than half an hour or so. Losing a fight after putting a lot of effort into it is not that rewarding, which is why modern gamers are looking for faster gameplay mechanics and shorter matches, and the developers are there to provide.

Ironbound is a neat mix of CCG and turn-based strategy elements, in which you play the role of a mighty hero as he battles others in the arena. Thus, you draw abilities from a deck and play them as you would in a normal CCG, except that everything is over in a matter of minutes. There’s a fair bit of customization involved, on the other hand, so you can get many hours of fun out of the game.

To begin with, each hero has unique abilities that allow you to approach the battles with a different attitude. As an example, the Berserker relies on brutal attacks and face-to-face confrontations, while the Assassin is a lot more subtle and calculated. In the game, this is achieved using various abilities you use, which are drawn from decks and can be played using the available action points.

In order to advance and face stronger and stronger enemies, you have to make sure your champion can withstand the upgraded challenge. Hence, you are rewarded with all sorts of items for winning battles, and you can also complete daily quests in order to earn currency. Given the fact that the game supports cross-platform multiplayer, there’s always someone to play with, which should keep you engaged.

The free-to-play tag may scare some people away, and there are microtransactions included, but none of them seem to affect your ability to play, at least not at first. As for the graphics, the artwork is not bad at all, but there’s not an awful lot happening on the screen most of the time. It would also be nice to have some sort of description for every ability, because the text is quite tiny sometimes.

In the end, Ironbound is not that unique in terms of gameplay, but the quick matches might be exactly what you are looking for. The customization is pretty neat, and there are hundreds of items for you to hunt along the way.