There's been a lot of talk about online trading card games, or trading card games based on MMOs or online properties recently, so when I saw the Chaotic booth on the exhibit hall floor at Comic-Con I was prepared to not be impressed. But for a game that is both a traditional card playing TCG and an online virtual card TCG, there's nothing boring about this company and their product. 4Kids Entertainment is responsible for licensing Yu-Gi-Oh!, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pokemon in the U.S. They manage their brands across many different platforms, and they do it well! You can find the Chaotic animated TV show on the 4Kids Network, helping to promote the brand to their target market.

The online portion of the game is distributed and produced by TC Digital, a subsidiary of 4Kids. Keeping the support and themes of the games in the family has proven to be a success for the companies, and gives players a sense of continuity and security. Your online game isn't going to shut down, or be changed drastically without it affecting the entire franchise, something both companies are looking to avoid.

With Chaotic, they've brought a traditional trading card game, with cards you buy down at your local hobby shop, or at national chains such as Toys"R"Us, Target and Wal-Mart, and added an online element that is, within itself, its own game. Taking place within the world of Perim, the TV show helps support the lore and world, while the OTCG coincides nicely with its non-virtual sister game. I spoke with 4Kids Entertainment's Executive Vice President of Acquisitions and Development and TC Digital's President and CEO Bryan Gannon about this fantastic IP, and how they're bringing the online to Online TCGs!

With 37 artists having worked on the sets so far, I can honestly say they're all incredibly talented. While each artist brings his or her own look and feel to the cards, each card fits comfortably in the setting, and there are no cards that look out of place or stale. The artwork on the cards is really fun, and fits perfectly in the universe of Perim, and there are over 40 hours of card art available on the TV show!

Having launched in October of 2007, the game has experienced an inordinate amount of success with number of registered accounts (700k), number of cards uploaded (25 million), and played games (over 60k a week), players have embraced this new way of playing TCGs with incredible passion. You can upload unlimited amounts of cards to your online collection, but a playable deck can consist of only 49 cards, and the starter decks come with 52 cards. Starter decks ($13.99-$14.99) will be available for each of the four tribes available; Overworlders, UnderWorlders, Danians, Mipedians and M'arrillians(5 in list. Sentence says 4 tribes.) with the fourth expansion pack, available September 2008. Booster packs range in price from $3.99 to $4.99.

The first thing that sets Chaotic apart from their competition is the cards. You see, not only does every card in a pack come with it's own online alpha numeric code which gives your online account access to that card in your arsenal, but every single card and card type has its own code. This is because though you can own twenty of one type of card, each card has its own stats, which may differ from another card of the same type. Compare it, if you will (everyone else does!) to DNA. While each card may look similar and have the same art, cards, even within their own same type, have different stats. This helps solve the problems of getting repeat cards, as one card of a certain type is in fact not the same as another card of that same type. One thing to note here is that your overall online card collection view will tell you how many of which cards you have, and you'll only be able to see the actual stats you're using while viewing your army (active deck cards). The screen shots included here have had their identifying codes blacked out, so that you guys don't beat me to uploading them and trying them!

For our look at the game, we focused on the online portion, and while you cannot buy virtual versions of the cards you can purchase the cards online and when they arrive, you can enter your codes and use them there. Online you can battle, trade virtual cards, and manage your virtual decks through a very easy to use and intuitive interface. Using the online features is free, and the website is fully complaint with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Found at Chaoticgame.com , the registration is easy, quick, and allows you to choose a demo deck without purchasing cards, so you can get to know the feel and rules of the game first. A quick download has you launching the Chaotic Pad, and into the action! Parental controls are included in the online portion, and are easy to access, manipulate and view.

The online games can be played in 1VS1, 3VS3, or 6VS6, with the number being the amount of creature cards each player can bring to the game. You can change your playable deck cards within these categories at any time you're not currently in a game, and you can use the same cards for each type of challenge, without moving cards in and out of each deck. Leader boards are maintained on the site, and when you initiate a challenge your Elo(How many, beside me, have no idea what E1o is. ) comparative rating is used to find a player close to your current ranking. You can view who has the same record as(as what?), and compare ELO(Elo or ELO – consistency needed here) scores as well as challenge any particular player. One can also view the overall rankings, the current day's and week's most wins and losses.

The cards shown here are from the Zenith of the Hive expansion which features the Danians, an insect like race. When setting up your army only one creature card of any type may be used, regardless of the fact that the stats are different. Also like other TCGs, there are sometimes card types that can't be mixed with others. Keeping these cards separated can be tricky when you're building a deck of actual cards, but the computer is truly your friend and will help point out when you have cards that cannot be mixed. If you're trying to build a deck, logging in every Wednesday and completing a battle, win or lose, will get you a virtual card, and is a great way to supplement your deck!

I only ran into one problem when installing the Chaotic Pad on a 64bit Operating System, and that is: my OS isn't supported. There is no plan to make it compatible at this time, so there will be no Chaotic Gaming for me on my regular PC. I'll have to take over the laptop or my honey's computer to properly give this baby a run through! There's also no support for Mac users.

The battles can take anywhere from 6 minutes for a quick 1 on 1 creature card game, to about 15 or 20 minutes for 6 creatures, so the casual aspect of the game is something nice to see. The forums are filled with helpful and shockingly quick replies, something I wasn't prepared for. For those of us looking for a great community and support for something we're thinking about getting into, this is a big asset.

I asked both representatives if they'd consider another property of trading card and TV without the online portion, similar to what they're doing with Chaotic, and both readily agreed that they'd prefer not to launch without the online content. I'm surprised more people aren't getting into this sort of content. Online is the way to go, and it can be a valuable asset when used properly to complete tie ins between other areas of the license.

All together, it's nice to see steps forward in online trading card games, and 4Kids Entertainment and TC Digital have taken the game to the next level. Hopefully we'll see more people getting into this type of environment. It's cheap to get into, easy to play, and a lot of fun, free entertainment, something we're all always looking for!

Becky "Tovin" Simpson
Allakhazam.com News Editor & Staff Writer
ZAM Network