Vegas Games 2000

"For those who like to gamble but can't afford it."

Once I started to play Vegas Games 2000, I was moderately disappointed to find that there are no showgirls, hookers, or elvis impersonators to be found anywhere in the game. All of which are essential to get the actual Vegas experience. What's the use of calling it Vegas games if your character can't get drunk and be married to a showgirl by Elvis? However, where this game lacks in Vegas atmosphere, it partially makes up for in variety. This game contains seven different games for those of us who are too young to gamble or who don't have the money or skill to last more than five minutes in a Vegas casino. I will now review these in no particular order.

Blackjack: I have an interesting history with this game. Having played this in the casinos, I have always started out winning but, whenever I leave and then come back to the table, my luck has always turned to ashes and I will lose whatever I previously won and then some. With this in mind, I made sure that the phone was off the hook, I had eaten, and all calls of nature had been answered before I started playing. This part of the game was very true to casino style play. The atmosphere made me feel like I was at a blackjack table, complete with insurance, double downs, and splits. I would have to say that this is one of the stronger games on the disc.

Craps: The strategy to this game is all in the betting. If you're smart, you base your entire game on a strategy of pass or don't pass. There is an amusing use of vibration when you're rolling the dice but this is really the only use of the vibration function in the game. With only one area where vibration is used in the entire game, I wonder if it was really necessary to include the vibration function at all. Still, it doesn't really matter since it doesn't detract from the game. This game is pretty much middle of the road. It is amusing for a while but it starts to get stale after a while.

Poker: This is another area where the game really shines through. The computer has five variants of poker for this game. The variants are: seven card stud, five card stud or draw, jacks or better, and Texas hold 'em. The AI is pretty good for the computer players. The computer will bluff and can be bluffed. The AI was unpredictable enough that I was never quite sure of what they were actually holding. Also, the AI doesn't make the classic mistake of telegraphing what it has by immediately tossing in a lot of money when it has a good hand, something many computer poker games do too often. This is another of the strongest games on this disc.

Video Poker: Isn't it a little redundant to have video poker on the same disc as poker? Video poker has always been for people who can't afford to play at the actual poker tables. They have five variants but the main change to each is how many wild cards you may have and what you need to have in your hand to actually make anything. Other than that, it is five different versions of the same five-card draw game. Video poker ends up being one of the weakest games simply due to the sameness of the variants. I can't see anyone playing this for long when they can just switch over to playing poker.

Roulette: I have only played roulette a few times but that has been enough for me to start developing a system to make consistent small wins at roulette. The only failings are when the wheel is slightly crooked and the zeros. In this game, I don't have to worry about the wheel but I still had to deal with the zeros. I did okay until I decided to bet it all on black seventeen. D'oh!

This story pretty much sums up the player's experience with roulette. After you make your bets, you are treated to a neat little graphic of the ball spinning in the wheel and eventually clinking to a stop. It is neat and the game is not without charm but, after a while, the game starts to get a little boring. I would say that this is a fair game. Players will want to give it a few tries but they will eventually get bored and give up on it.

Baccarat: This is the game that Ian Fleming's original 007 would play in the novels. Having read Casino Royale a few times, I was eager to see how the game was played. After I played, feelings were ... mixed. The strategy in Baccarat is to guess which hand will come out the highest. The bank wins slightly more often but, if you bet on the bank, you only get 95% of your winnings. Betting on yourself gives you all of the winnings but the player loses slightly more often. Betting on a tie pays off 8 to 1 but the odds are actually ten to one. There is no strategy to the cards at all. The hands are merely dealt out, tallied, and that's it. This makes the game just an elaborate version of Hi-Lo I would say this game is really middle of the road. There is nothing that really makes you want to play or not to play it.

Slots: The last is the least in this case. All you do with slots is push the X button like a mouse trying to get a food pellet. There are five variants which have 1, 3, or 5 lines and all have a progressive jackpot. In real life, I have found that the odds of winning are best with 3 lines but, despite the graphics being the best here, players will swiftly tire of pushing X like an automaton. This is why I think this game is the worst of the lot. Now, if I got a food pellet every so often....

In closing, the graphics are fairly good for a gambling game and the games are fairly easy to learn and get into. This brings me to the rating. As a game for people who honestly like to gamble with virtual money, I think that those people would definitely want to check this game out. However, for the average gamer, this game might be fun to rent out for the weekend but it isn't anything that they would add to their library, much less pass up RE3 for. Since I can't do a separate rating for each, I will combine the scores and give this game a 7.4, rounding Vegas Games 2000 out to a 7.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/06