The good one is the Zatch Bell card game, which is something I bet you'll never hear again. These are relative terms. Zatch Bell wins because it has a gameplay hook that fascinates me. Now, I know almost squat about the TV show; I've seen it once or twice on Cartoon Network and it seems benign enough. Another Pokemon variant with DBZ action. I wasn't heading out looking for Zatch Bell merch. So me snapping up the card game went something like this:

We walk into Toys R Us and one of their ad flyers catches my eye. It has the Zatch Bell logo and the phrase "THE HOTTEST GAME OF THE YEAR HAS ARRIVED!" Remember, I'm in a TRU so naturally I'm thinking "video games" and I am highly amused to see somebody call a Zatch Bell video game the Hottest. The video game industry is prone to hyperbole, but with big titles like Zelda and GTA around, it would take extreme balls to call a licensed anime game the Hottest of the Year. So I pick up the flyer.

Turns out, it's for a card game. Well, that's still a bold bit of marketing, so I retain my smirk. But I start softening around the edges when I read this in the bullet points: "the first collectible card game with no deck to shuffle, no draw or discard phase, no cards "in hand" to reconcile!"

Say what? How in the hell did they manage to make a card game that doesn't operate out of a deck? The next paragraph explains how you insert your chosen cards into a little spell book, and cards are played as you turn the pages of the book.

That did it. I have to see this one in action. Purchased.

Then I made Mike play it. And I'm still willing to call it interesting. I like how the spell books easily display your cards, and I like the way the presentation mimics the action in the cartoon. The cards could use some better design... there's four types of cards and the only way to distinguish between them all is with a colored border. Mamodos/Orange, Partners/Blue, Spells/Brown, Events/Green. They didn't bother to print "SPELL" or "EVENT" on the cards, which would have added a little instant visual clarity, especially for beginners. Also, although you'd think you could easily identify the Mamados and Partner cards as being people, they went and made a bunch of Event cards that are also people. I hate that.

Deckbuilding looks like a pain, since there are waaaay too many Mamodos in the card set... and each Mamado can only cast his or her own spells. So if you want to make a deck around one of the more obscure Mamodos (IE, not Zatch himself), you're going to have to buy a lot of boosters to dredge up all of the relevant spell cards. I think it may be a Toys R Us retail exclusive, which means you're at the mercy of $4 boosters, which is just awful.

Also, Mike and I have a philosophical concern. Given that you don't shuffle your spell book cards, there is a potential that any games between the same two spell books might play out exactly the same. Aside from a couple coin-flip based cards, the only randomizing factor is that each player can choose how many pages to turn at the beginning of each turn (the more pages you turn, the more magic points you generate, although when you run out of pages, you lose.) Further research required.

The other game is Super Hero Showdown, a gesalt customizable card game and action figure game. Each player gets an action figure and some corresponding power cards, and you trample over a modular card-based gameboard trying to hit each other.

The packaging makes a big deal about how posing the figures is an integral part of the game. It's not. Taking the time to pose your figure to match your attack (punch or kick, for example) means as much to the gameplay as you just announcing "Hey, I'm punching." It's not like the game judges you based on how well you can pose an action figure.

Basically, you move, you decide if you're going to do a regular attack or blow out one of your card attacks, you apply any effects from the space you moved to, then roll the dice. In a classic stupid move, you have to add your 2D6 roll to your hero's attack score (defender does the same)... but each figure's Attack and Defense are almost identical! Every guy I've seen in the assortment has numbers ranging from 11 to 13, which ain't much of a spread. I bought the Spider-Man (12A, 13D) vs. The Thing (13A, 12D) two pack, and a Ghost Rider (12A, 12D) booster figure. How dopey is it that all three of those guys have nearly the same Attack and Defense. Obviously nobody wanted to spend any time constructing finely balanced figures here, where a character with low numbers has awesome power cards to back him up, and vice versa. No, everyone here has the same A & D, and a similar assortment of Plus This and Minus That power cards. Weak.

There's a Dr. Doom figure in the next wave, so I'll definitely get that one... maybe Human Torch as well. But I'm getting them mainly as miniaturized Marvel Legends figures that just happen to have a game attached to them, rather than the other way around. Alhough there's an idea, use the Legends figures instead...

The Thing figure is really nice, especially when you consider these guys are roughly Star Wars size, 4.5" to 5". The Spider-Man figure is one of the least poseable Spider-Man toys available, which was something of a shock, given the gme wants you to pose toys all day. He also suffers from a waif body that makes decent posing even harder to pull off. I like my Spider-Man skinny, but he shouldn't be a supermodel.

I forgot to mention that every figure comes with a spring-loaded weapon for ranged attacks. Hilarious.

Right beside the Showdown racks was a handful of Marvel Figure Factory boxes. This isn't a game, but I bought one anyway. Each one is a plastic crate that contains a Marvel hero diorama you assemble yourself. Eight of them are labelled, but there are twelve SECRET figures! I sprung for one of the secret boxes. Mainly because the coolest labelled box was Iron Man, and I didn't think his model was that cool at all. So I hoped I would get somebody awesome like the Silver Surfer or Doc Doom.

I got Storm.