""The most interesting game I've found yet..." - my dad"

-Introduction-
Salutations. My name is Gyarados Scotty and this is my review of a great game that I am sure you have at least come across once in your life. I know that this particular game is rotting in your quite large games folder, the game merely, but somewhat appropriately entitled Solitaire. This game is available to play on quite a few systems, but I have decided to review the DOS/Windows version. The name is appropriate because you play this game solitarily, or in simpler terms, by yourself. The about section of the game says that it was developed for Microsoft by some dude named Wes Cherry. It also states that this version of ordinated Solitaire was released, developed and probably created in the revolutionary year of 1981, but still continues to entertain me, to entertain my father and it will hopefully entertain you.

-Basic Information-
First off this is a card game. The genre of cards is usually played with a deck composed of fifty-two rectangle-shaped, flatly pressed cards and has been around for possibly hundreds of years, except they were played in the manual fashion back then, with other non-mechanical people. The deck contains four different suits; Spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts. In each of these suits, the cards have different values, which normally are represented by the number or sign on it. The numbers are, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. The signs are Jack, which represents eleven, Queen, which represents twelve, King, which represents thirteen and the Ace, which can either represent number one or fourteen, depending on the rules of the game you are playing. In Solitaire, the Ace humbly represents a lowly one, to my knowledge.

The object of this particular game is to utilize the entire deck of cards, yes, you heard me, all fifty-two, to fill up four different suit stacks, only one individual suit per individual stack, in the order of ace escalating up to the king. It may sound simple enough, but there are quite a few catches along the way. You commence with a total of seven row stacks, each one with only one card turned over and each stack to the right has one more card on the bottom of the stack than the previous one. You stack cards of the opposite colour onto each other, of the ones you control in play, the ones that you can see the number and suit, starting with the king all the way up to the ace. For example, you might have something like this: 10 of Hearts followed by the 9 of Clubs, next the 8 of diamonds, followed by the 7 of spades, et cetera, et cetera. When you can't do anything with what you have in the row stack, you can start dealing cards to yourself with the shuffled deck, located at the top left corner of the screen. After you feel your row stacks are acceptable, you can start placing the cards into the suit stacks, if you have the correct cards in them.

In this game, you have a limited array of options, but can have almost dramatic effects on your gameplay. Your first option is to select the number of cards to draw from the deck. This number can be either one or three. Although setting it on one is significantly easier than three, there are a few drawbacks. For instance, Vegas mode only allows you to scroll through the deck once while set on one, while you get an entire three turns on its counterpart. The next options are done with checkmark boxes, so you can do any combination or number of them. They consist of Timed Game, Status Bar, Outline Dragging and Keep Score. Timed Game only affects the Standard mode, by lowering your score every ten seconds by the mere sum of two and also gives you a large bonus at the end of the game, which can reach thousands of dollars. Status Bar affects all modes and merely displays your current score. Outline dragging lives up to it's title. You simply move the outline of the selected card instead of the entire card. Keep Score only affects Vegas mode and does what its name says. It keeps your score in an accurate manner. The concluding array of options is to determine your scoring. It can be either Standard, Vegas, or None. You can't lose in Standard, but your score resets at the completion of each round. Vegas mode is like a match in Las Vegas, as the name humbly implies. Each game requires fifty-two dollars. You attain five dollars for every one of your cards that enter your suit stack. The objective is to simply try to win a lot of money. Finally, the last option is None. No score is displayed at all and you cannot lose. Another option worth mention is the option to select your playing deck. You receive twelve different possible selections, all quite snazzy, if I might add.

If you ever need help with this game, there is a detailed help file. It is found on the menu bar under help. It contains detailed explanations of every possible aspect of this simple game, so I recommend you consult it if you need help.

-Visual Aspect-
The visually related aspect of this game is simple, like everything else in this game, but like everything else in this game, that is all it requires for excellence. The decks, also known as the backs of the cards, are all colourful and vibrant, but they remain easy on your eyes, which is great for extended hours of play. Out of the twelve selectable decks, only a few have a gloomy appearance. They included and a tropical island set, crappy robot set, haunted mansion set, two different fish sets and seven other patterned cards. The card fronts, also known as the parts with the varied numbers and symbols, are pretty bland and not customizable. However, they have different colours among the different suits and the symbols are somewhat easily identifiable, which will ease your playing experience.

Another feature that I normally mention is the environment of play. The only things applicable are the background, the different stacks and the dealing deck. The background is extremely simple. just a plain, green background. It is said to represent a card table, but I have never seen a card table of that bizarre color. It would have been nice if you could change the color, but you can't win them all. The stacks don't really look real. They almost look like clear versions of one of the decks, in my opinion. There isn't any downfall to the stacks because they are easy to see and like a lot of other things in this game, you will be able to stand them. That goes for the strange background also.

The only other graphically related attribute of this game is the end screen for when you achieve victory. After you place all fifty-two cards into the appropriate suit stacks, they drop from their unstable perches and bounce across the play area, the background, one at a time. Each of the card leave a trail as they fall, which has an impressive appearance, in my humble opinion. This is probably my favourite part of the game because it has been mesmerizing me for years. However, if you don't like it, you can cancel it by clicking with the mouse.

Overall, the graphics may seem pretty plain, but are superiorly done considering the time this game was created for the personal computer, because to my knowledge, personal computers were released around that time. All of the visuals are all easy on the eyes because of their simplicity, contain good use of the correct colours and look really sharp.

-Audio Aspect-
Well, normally I would ramble on and on about the audio related aspect of a video game, but for this particular game, it isn't applicable. This card game for the computer features absolutely, positively, conclusively no sound at all. Optional sound would have been nice, like a random bing, or a shazam type sound effect of some sort, but the shortage of sound doesn't really affect the overall fun or gameplay of this game at all. It would have been nice for sound effects to have been included, but I believe that the musical shortage is good, for in a game like this, music would become quite tedious very quickly.

-Control-
The control of this game barely requires any skill for if you are familiar with the mouse or keyboard in the windows operating system. For the option of using the mouse, you simply drag the card that you want to your choice of a location. You drag by holding down the right mouse button and moving it to your desired position. You release the right mouse button to release the card, where it will stay, if the move is legal to the simple rules. For the option of the keyboard, you move your selection tool by pushing on the corresponding arrow key, either left or right. You can pick a card up by pushing the enter or the space bar key. If the move is legal, you can put it down by pushing either the enter key or the space key. Overall, the control is great because it is extremely easy to catch onto and requires no skill at all.

-Challenge -
Well, I guess you can say that this game is extremely challenging for it never concludes. It kept me occupied for quite a while when I first tried it, but then again, I was only three. Winning a round requires a fair amount of skill, but quite a bit of it comes down to overall chance. I guess one thing that could be extremely challenging about this game would be to try to see if the score has a max, for I personally don't know. =(

-Replayability-
I still play this while waiting for large downloads on my extremely slow modem, watching television on my ATI Player or am just plain bored, and I have been doing this same thing for over ten years. Solitaire certainly gets easier with those years of experience, but it doesn't lose any of it's amusing effect of when you first tried it. I feel that Solitaire is somewhat addictive, as it is difficult to get unhooked from it. I am sure you will be playing this game years from now, as I believe that I will.

-Length-
I don't really think that length applies because this game is never-ending because after you win a game, the same question will always come up. ''Would you like to deal again''. One inconsiderable little game will never last no longer than two or three minutes, at the absolute most, but you will be playing them consecutively for several hours in a single sitting, which is pretty good for a game of this simple of a concept.

The collective time you will squander on this mere game? I would go as far as saying it will consume dozens, if not hundreds, possibly thousands of hours of your time, if you enjoy it on the same admirable level I do. That is the level that will never find this game tedious, unlike this review =P

-Good Points-
- Highly Addictive
- Original Concept
- Really Fun to Play
- Easy to Catch onto
- Excellent Transition from the Card Game to the Computer

-Bad Points-
- Lack of Audio
- Simple Visual Aspect

-Would Gyarados Scotty Buy, Burn, Rent or Rom this Game?-
Well, if you are reading this review, there is a good chance you already have Solitaire, unless you are on a next-generation console, with a modem, like the ever-popular Dreamcast. Anyway, I don't think that this game is purchasable, but if you have deleted it, you can always just get it back from a friend via a three and a half inch floppy disk or if you are feeling adventurous, a burnt Compact Disc. Hard Drive memory isn't really a factor in this because it is only the minuscule size of one-hundred seventy-one thousand, three hundred and ninety-two bytes, which roughly equals out to 167 kilobytes. For those who don't know, that is really, really small for a game. Since none of these different categories up above apply really at all, unless you can buy it, just play the bloody game, because I know you have it and will like it. Well, at least I think so.....

-Conclusion-
In conclusion, I would like to again recommend you give this game a try, if you have it available for this particular platform. This game surely isn't worth buying a 2000 dollar computer or laptop for, but if you happen to have one of these fantastic machines equipped with this particular computer game, it is worth your good thirty minute try, although if you enjoy it like I do, be prepared to play for hours beyond the preliminary testing period of thirty minutes. I have come to the final conclusion that this game shall receive the humble score of nine out of ten ( 9 / 10 ), and it also receives my recommendation to all video game players of all ages, especially you lazy card players out there =)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/01, Updated 01/10/01